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Danny's writing challenge: This Is How I Fooled My Older Brother

Posted by AG on April 26, 2017

It is May? Oh.. No, Not yet.. 

I guess as long as April is running, then there is still a time for new participation... Sorry Danny, I guess it's better to come late than not to come at all.. And thus, here it is my participation on Danny's Challenge: Fool's Day.

I remembered this event, when I left a comment on Mary's blog about valuing and loving our toes the way they deserve.. 

It happened once that I was playing a joke on my family. I told them that "Scientists say that the face of human being looks like their biggest toe." I added that this analytical research was applied on 500 volunteers and results were shockingly identical.. My family knew that I was telling a joke so they laughed at it and found it funny. But after some time, we were talking about something else and by chance we looked towards my older brother to find him focusing on his biggest toe and putting a mirror in front of him trying to find similarity between his face and his biggest toe, Muahahahahahahahahahaha.. 

I do not want to tell you that his face's color turned to red, when he saw the all of us bursting into a loud laughter.. 

That was really funny to remember it again and again.. But for him, it's still embarrassing for sure :P 

Well, Thank you Danny for this challenge.. 

I hope you find it funny :) 

Thanks for reading. 

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Comments

  • Danny Clark May 7, 2017 13:31

    Always glad to be helpful!

  • AG May 7, 2017 13:15

    It's great :D. 

    Really thanks for explanation :) 

  • Danny Clark May 7, 2017 13:05

    Dear AG, let me answer.

    1. If you ask a full question, there MUST be the inversion whether you write or say it. On the other hand, we often omit the first words while speaking. Let me show you. The correct sentence is:

    "Is there anyone at home?" and we should write or say it in the same way. But in oral speech we can say: "Anyone home?" and it is OK although it is incorrect.

    2. If we speak about people using the singular nouns like A  PERSON, A HUMAN BEING we use the masculine pronoun meaning both gerders. It is correct, but you can also say "he/she".

    3. looking at himself in a mirror standing in front. Hahaha! Why natives only ay so?! I constructed my sentence using common grammar rules!

    4. I understand your idea. You can say "we suddenly glimpsed at him" or "we happened to glipse at him". Just replace LOOKED by GLIMPSED.

    I am always ready to answer all the questions until you have them.

  • AG May 7, 2017 12:19

    I would like more particularly to comment on some mistakes: 

    • It is May?

    I know it's a question here.. but sometimes I use normal sentence to make a question without making any grammatical changes.. perhaps it's grammatically wrong, but I wonder if something like that is used in the normal speech. I assume yes... Isn't it ? 

    • A face of human being looks like his big toe.

    The pronoun here refer to both genders (male and female). So, shall we usually use the masculine pronoun to refer to both genders in similar cases and in this case?

    •  looking at himself in a mirror standing in front.

    I think it's the native way to express that meaning. 

    • we looked at my older brother.

    The meaning that I wanted is more like "we caught a glimpse at him by chance". So, how do you think I should have said it? 

    I think that other mistakes are well noted. 

    Thanks again, Sir :) 

  • Danny Clark May 7, 2017 11:48

    No problem. Here are some explanations.

    1. “Is it May?” I think it clear. It is a question.
    2. “It is still time for..”. When we speak about time, we start the sentence with IT. (It is 9 am. It is May. It is time for us to leave)
    3. Here is your sentence “It happened once that I was playing a joke on my family”. You told a joke and the reaction of your brother was later. So, the progressive tense doesn’t sound appropriate. Besides, “It happened once that…”. Knowing you a little I suppose you to play jokes all the time and I deleted “happened” as it means just opposite. The idea of this sentence is clear: one day you told them a joke. I just replaced ONE DAY by ONCE.
    4. Your sentence: “Scientists say that the face of human being looks like their biggest toe”. We can say “the face of a human being looks like his big toe” (singular meaning one person) or “ faces of human beings look like their big toes” (plural meaning all people).
    5. We apply something TO something/somebody.
    6.  Your sentence: “we looked towards my older brother to find him focusing on…” We look AT something/somebody. You looked at him and saw him…. It is wrong to use the infinitive here and the infinitive usually defines a purpose.
    7. Your sentence”… and putting a mirror in front of him trying to find similarity between..” Your brother was looking at himself in the mirror that was standing in front of him. So, I corrected it using the right word order and the participle phrase.
    8. TO BURST OUT IN laughter/tears…. Is an idiom.
    9. When we introduce an adjective, we start a sentence with IT IS: It is funny, It is great, It is necessary and so on.
    10. Your sentence: “I hope you find it funny” You wrote this phrase before posting. There must be the future tenses.

    As you see, all your mistakes are quite explainable. If you have any questions, just ask them.

  • AG May 7, 2017 11:06

    Mr. Danny, I would really appreciate that.. 

    Thanks a lot. 

  • Danny Clark May 7, 2017 10:37

    Dear AG, sorry for not replying earlier.

    Well, there are not so many mistakes and most of them are explainable. I can explain if you like

  • AG May 7, 2017 0:34
    Elen :P
  • Elen May 6, 2017 17:40

    AG, what a teaser you are :P

  • AG April 29, 2017 19:07

    I am very thankful to you for correcting me, Mr. Danny... 

    I am really speechless before my too many mistakes.. I really don't know how I could pay attention to such mistakes, because it's more likely to be of a native speaker's intuition.. Thank you so much..

    I am sorry for being late to answering your comment.. I just had some bad days..

    Thanks again.. 

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