Another (school) student once wrote in an exam when analysing a short story: \u201cThe first dam followed the second\u201d. Now here was another puzzle for me. Why should the first dam follow the second, i.e. come after the second? That did not seem to make sense. Then I realised that the student was translating from German: \u201cDem ersten Damm folgte der zweite\u201d. Here, the second is the one that follows, because it is the subject of the sentence, although it appears at the end. That\u2019s fine in German, but if you do it in English, you get it all wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another (school) student once wrote in an exam when analysing a short story: \u201cThe first dam followed the second\u201d. Now here was another puzzle for me. Why should the first dam follow the second, i.e. come after the second? That … Continue reading