Get Help With English Here

This thread is for tropers who have trouble with English and would like some help with the crazy grammar of this crazy language.

Write down what you wish to edit on the wiki. If you have been suspended from editing, another troper might be kind enough to edit for you after your suggestions have been corrected.

The thread is for help and feedback on your own suggested edits.

If you want help correcting other people's edits (e.g., if you find a page which seems to have grammar problems but want a second opinion, or you don't feel able to fix it by yourself) then that's off-topic here, but we have a separate Grammar Police cleanup thread that can provide assistance.

Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 16th 2023 at 5:37:57 PM

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

I am glad I was the one that inspired this :)

I have this work in progress YKTTW I already spell checked but I dont know fit is well done.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=yxxc29ngxan3unzanjswgahi

I am glad I was the one that inspired this :)

I have this work in progress YKTTW I already spell checked but I dont know IF it is well done.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=yxxc29ngxan3unzanjswgahi

Also I think that while it is technicaly truth , it is very depresing and boring , what you guys think?

edited 29th Jul '10 9:21:00 PM by masterchief

Do you mind if I edit it directly? I'll post here some tips if you like.

BTW, I'm a chick.

@ Yamikuronue

—Not at a ll , Btw tips would rock as they say Thanks alot for being this nice , I am exited becuase My english will improve a lot.

"Give man a fish and he will eat for a day, Teach him how to swim and he will eat for a lifetime"

edited 29th Jul '10 9:41:19 PM by masterchief

Alright, here goes:

A couple comma issues: in the second paragraph, "like I Just Want to Be Loved" is parenthetical phrase (a phrase that can be taken out of the sentence without making it incomplete), just like "in and of itself" in the first, and thus needs commas. Also, it goes comma, then space, not space, then comma. You don't need a comma between the subject and the verb: "this Wish-Fulfillment is common", not "this Wish-Fulfillment, is common", or "The person enjoying the fantasy often" without a comma between fantasy and often. Same thing between a link and the link text. It seems you're sticking in a comma whenever there's a lot of words at once, but you can write rather long sentences without needing commas at all.

The number one issue I'm seeing is run-on sentences. Keep an eye on when a sentence ends; don't try to squish too much into one sentence.

"This wish is expressed by Shy" - you want "shy people".

"None" stands by itself, without anything to modify. You want "No people" instead of "None people".

"Is not limited to" - "Is" is the verb, you don't need to add another verb, so don't put "be" after it.

Relationships can be counted, so you want "few" and "many" not "little" and "much" - that's for things that can't be counted, like the amount of mashed potatoes on your plate.

"One thing is for sure:" pretty much always has a colon after it.

Trope-wise, however, "Real people desire friends" isn't really tropeable. I'd remove type A altogether. I copyedited it, though, so you can see where the mistakes were.

Also, I don't see the connection to Beautiful All Along... Similarly, I've completely re-written the following sentence, as the way you had phrased it boxed you into a corner: "In some instances they will end up suddenly popular and acting like The Libby, albeit temporally, thanks to The Power of Friendship." I tried not to change the meaning too much.

I didn't touch the examples.

BTW, I'm a chick.

@Yamikurone

Thanks alo I have learned alot with your post and surely my grammar has improved thank to your help,you are realy good at grammar

I feel so ashamed for being so big of a trouble and so bad in trouble

Thanks alot for taqking the time into helping I realy apreciate it

edited 29th Jul '10 10:27:32 PM by masterchief

That would be "teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime." The word fish doubles as a verb meaning 'to catch fish.' Though, I guess if you were a good enough swimmer you could catch fish in your teeth.

Support stupid freshness, yo.

Allow me to also say what a great idea this is.

Got a challenge for you, folks - the recently-created page on Warhammer 40000 Trouble, which either needs some serious TLC from this thread or a cutlisting.

What's precedent ever done for us?

If we are to salvage that... page, we should at least move it over to the Troper Works namespace, seeing as the... page was made by the authors themselves.

edited 30th Jul '10 8:41:15 AM by Komodin

Experience has taught me to investigate anything that glows.

I cleaned up the intro, but as I said in my edit reason,I haven't read it and that page does not make me want to read it, so I'm not in a position to do much about the tropes list, except comment that it looks like they added every single one they thought might apply.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Damn, I thought this was a thread about getting help with the English.

I usually YKTTW all of my tropes but if anything needs some reading through, can I post it here?

edited 30th Jul '10 11:15:35 AM by Vree

Sure, you can even link to the YKTTW thread if you want.

OK, here's one question. There is a type of character that originated in 18th century French drama who is part mouthpiece for the author, part stand-in for the audience whose role is to be the voice of reason. In my language the word is "rezonőr". Anyone knows the English expression?

edited 2nd Aug '10 9:43:36 AM by Vree

Is the literal translation reasoner as in "one who reasons"? And this is a development after Moliere, Racine and Corneille right?

The word is raisonneur. We swiped it from the French.

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

^^ Probably, though I also liked to think that it is related to "resonance", as in this character also occassionally helps to release the tension in the story, by working with the characters to solve a situation (eg. if there is a misunderstanding he'd be the one to point out the real reason). Of course the circle always comes to close against his efforts. And yes to that 2nd part.

edited 9th Aug '10 2:23:33 PM by Vree

So sort of a cross between Meta Guy, The Ishmael, and Author Avatar, then?

@Eddie Thanks! Just what I was looking for.

Now I know it wasn't my literature teacher who invented it.

Tho I continue to be dumbfounded how cetain countries teach some litetrature tropes as most basic while in others, they don't even get a Wikipedia page :p

Somebody help this guy, please: Dragon Mail

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

Took a stab at it.

This is pretty elementary, but how do you get around the unidentified third person issue? In Hunagrian he, she, it and "someone we don't know" are a single pronoun, and I find myself substituting "they" in my articles even though I know that settling for one gender and using he or she for the same article would probably be better. Is "they" ever used in this manner at all, or does this sound alein when it is clear that you are talking about a single person? How often should someone use options like "this person" and similar?

I know the technical answers to these but I think I still fall short of making this flow well or sound natural.

They is sometimes used as a gender neutral singular when talking about a person, "If a passenger looks out the window, they may see the Grand Canyon beneath them." It's considered more polite then calling a person "it," and while it's not in common speech, it's hardly rare.

Singular they has been used in English since at least the late 1500's. It's proper grammar. You're allowed to use it like that.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

"Singular They" (using "they" (and "them", "themselves", and "their") as a gender-neutral or gender-indeterminate/gender-unknown  ^*

or number-indeterminate  ^*

^{(Anyone who has a complaint may take their case to the board." — how many people will have complaints?)}

third person pronoun) is acceptable to all but the most prescriptivist pedants. It's been in regular use since the late 1400's. The "rule" against it was put in place by 18th century grammarians who decided that English should follow the rules of Latin, and then imposed several such "rules".

Singular they will often sound more natural than any of the constructions you'd need to use to avoid it.

edited 18th Aug '10 1:22:44 PM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.