I’ve been thinking about the word ‘as’
Aug. 12th, 2009 06:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thismazI never really gave it much thought, until recently. It is such an unassuming word that I hardly even noticed it, but lately it has started to intrude upon me.
Now I’m seeing it everywhere and sometimes it is either wrongly or awkwardly used, or so it seems to me.
Before this started happening, I hadn't considered the subtleties; I simply knew what felt right. Over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about *why* it feels right, or wrong.
What am I talking about?
The sentence structure – she did something as she did something else. I’m talking about conjunctions.
None of my grammar books have been any help. They tell me what a conjunction is, but they don’t go into detail on each one. So I’m putting it out here, for you to tell me if you think I have a valid point.
I got to thinking about what it was that was bothering me about some usages of ‘as’ that I was seeing.
And my logic?
It seems to me that ‘as’, as a conjunction, implies a relationship of both when things happen, and how long they last ie, both timing and duration.
"This way," she said as she opened the door. – She is speaking at the same time as she is opening and there is an implication that the two events take the same amount of time to complete. But does this come from the word ‘as’, or from our knowledge of how long a door takes to open, coupled with how long it takes to say those words?
He cried as he sat down. - The act of crying and the act of sitting are coincidental. What happens after he has sat down? To me, the implication is that he stops crying, which sounds stupid. If it was, He cried as he sat, or He cried out as he sat down, that would be different; those actions have a similarity of duration.
Alternatively, the longer action could be turned into a context for the shorter one - He was crying as he sat down. Or the shorter one can be stretched - He cried as he repeatedly got up and sat down again. You know? I'm beginning to feel sorry for this boy.
Sometimes I see it used and it just feels wrong - He cried as he pricked his thumb on a thorn. Besides being evidence that I continue to torture the poor kid, to me, that sentence needs a ‘when’ or even a ‘because’, because the prick has to come first (even if only by a split second) if it is the cause of the cry.
What do different conjunctions do? There are so many others, but picking a few (Before, When, And, While and Until) and considering the concepts of coincidence and duration...
"This way," she said, before she opened the door. – No question there, is there? These actions are consecutive - the speaking is finished, before the opening begins.
"This way," she said, when she opened the door. – Okay, this one is less categorical (I suppose it could be concurrent) but, to me, the opening comes first and the speaking follows. I have a picture of her opening the door to someone and bidding them enter.
Let’s try a different one - He cried when he sat down. - Either the sitting down caused him to cry, or he held off from crying until he was sitting. The actions are consecutive and it is possible there is also a causative relationship. He cried when he pricked his thumb on a thorn. See what I mean?
"This way," she said, and she opened the door. – This says that the speaking came first, but it is not the ‘and’ that tells us that. That comes simply from the order in which the events are listed. Turning the sentence around gives us the opposite - She opened the door and said, "This way." 'And' is a neutral way to link actions.
He cried while he sat down. - Definitely concurrent actions and the duration problem is certainly there. Let’s try a longer pair of actions – He laughed while he drove too fast down the mountain road.
Does that mean that a short action can’t work in this sentence with a long one? That would be the test – She swallowed the lump in her throat while she slowly climbed the stairs. Hmm, no, it doesn’t work. If I try to picture that, I see her convulsively swallowing with every step she takes.
He cried until he sat down. - Even more definitely consecutive actions, because the 'until' says that he stopped.
Conclusion?
‘As’ and ‘while’ imply coincidence of both timing and duration.
‘Before’, ‘when’ and ‘until’ signal consecutive actions.
‘And’ doesn’t do either, but the order of events follows the order in which they are stated.
Does that sound right to you?
It has got to the point where, almost every time I see ‘as’, I am pulled out of the story and back into the world of black symbols on a white page, as I pause to figure out if it is being correctly used. *g*
So maybe this is a defence of the word ‘as’, rather than an attack upon it.
Except... there is something so much more elegant about restructuring the sentence entirely, using the simple past and the continuous past tenses – "This way," she said, opening the door.
PS (because once I start, I just have to thrashthe boy the idea to death. (No horses were harmed in the making of this post.))
So what do you do if you want to use that sentence structure, with two actions occurring at the same time, but with different durations?
I think you need to use 'and'.
He cried and sat down. – The two events are happening at about the same time and they have different durations, but there is no texture to the statement, so we don’t know if the they are linked in any way. Turning it around, it seems to make more sense - He sat down and cried, but here we've gone consecutive again. So, does the longer action have to come first, in order to defuse that assumption?
Let’s try something else... She sat down and drank her tea. It makes sense for her to sit first, so that she is comfortable while drinking She drank her tea and sat down. Hmm, she could be doing both at once.
I’m out of ideas here. I've got to the point where I'm afraid that all the examples I can think of do fit my 'rule' (of timing, duration and the use of the word 'as') because I can’t see beyond it.
If you've stuck with this, so far, would you give me a bit more of your time and prove me wrong? Can you give me some examples using 'as' that break my 'rule' but still work?
PPS
"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things -
of shoes and ships and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings,
and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings."
~ The Walrus and The Carpenter ~
Now I’m seeing it everywhere and sometimes it is either wrongly or awkwardly used, or so it seems to me.
Before this started happening, I hadn't considered the subtleties; I simply knew what felt right. Over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about *why* it feels right, or wrong.
What am I talking about?
The sentence structure – she did something as she did something else. I’m talking about conjunctions.
None of my grammar books have been any help. They tell me what a conjunction is, but they don’t go into detail on each one. So I’m putting it out here, for you to tell me if you think I have a valid point.
I got to thinking about what it was that was bothering me about some usages of ‘as’ that I was seeing.
And my logic?
It seems to me that ‘as’, as a conjunction, implies a relationship of both when things happen, and how long they last ie, both timing and duration.
"This way," she said as she opened the door. – She is speaking at the same time as she is opening and there is an implication that the two events take the same amount of time to complete. But does this come from the word ‘as’, or from our knowledge of how long a door takes to open, coupled with how long it takes to say those words?
He cried as he sat down. - The act of crying and the act of sitting are coincidental. What happens after he has sat down? To me, the implication is that he stops crying, which sounds stupid. If it was, He cried as he sat, or He cried out as he sat down, that would be different; those actions have a similarity of duration.
Alternatively, the longer action could be turned into a context for the shorter one - He was crying as he sat down. Or the shorter one can be stretched - He cried as he repeatedly got up and sat down again. You know? I'm beginning to feel sorry for this boy.
Sometimes I see it used and it just feels wrong - He cried as he pricked his thumb on a thorn. Besides being evidence that I continue to torture the poor kid, to me, that sentence needs a ‘when’ or even a ‘because’, because the prick has to come first (even if only by a split second) if it is the cause of the cry.
What do different conjunctions do? There are so many others, but picking a few (Before, When, And, While and Until) and considering the concepts of coincidence and duration...
"This way," she said, before she opened the door. – No question there, is there? These actions are consecutive - the speaking is finished, before the opening begins.
"This way," she said, when she opened the door. – Okay, this one is less categorical (I suppose it could be concurrent) but, to me, the opening comes first and the speaking follows. I have a picture of her opening the door to someone and bidding them enter.
Let’s try a different one - He cried when he sat down. - Either the sitting down caused him to cry, or he held off from crying until he was sitting. The actions are consecutive and it is possible there is also a causative relationship. He cried when he pricked his thumb on a thorn. See what I mean?
"This way," she said, and she opened the door. – This says that the speaking came first, but it is not the ‘and’ that tells us that. That comes simply from the order in which the events are listed. Turning the sentence around gives us the opposite - She opened the door and said, "This way." 'And' is a neutral way to link actions.
He cried while he sat down. - Definitely concurrent actions and the duration problem is certainly there. Let’s try a longer pair of actions – He laughed while he drove too fast down the mountain road.
Does that mean that a short action can’t work in this sentence with a long one? That would be the test – She swallowed the lump in her throat while she slowly climbed the stairs. Hmm, no, it doesn’t work. If I try to picture that, I see her convulsively swallowing with every step she takes.
He cried until he sat down. - Even more definitely consecutive actions, because the 'until' says that he stopped.
Conclusion?
‘As’ and ‘while’ imply coincidence of both timing and duration.
‘Before’, ‘when’ and ‘until’ signal consecutive actions.
‘And’ doesn’t do either, but the order of events follows the order in which they are stated.
Does that sound right to you?
It has got to the point where, almost every time I see ‘as’, I am pulled out of the story and back into the world of black symbols on a white page, as I pause to figure out if it is being correctly used. *g*
So maybe this is a defence of the word ‘as’, rather than an attack upon it.
Except... there is something so much more elegant about restructuring the sentence entirely, using the simple past and the continuous past tenses – "This way," she said, opening the door.
PS (because once I start, I just have to thrash
So what do you do if you want to use that sentence structure, with two actions occurring at the same time, but with different durations?
I think you need to use 'and'.
He cried and sat down. – The two events are happening at about the same time and they have different durations, but there is no texture to the statement, so we don’t know if the they are linked in any way. Turning it around, it seems to make more sense - He sat down and cried, but here we've gone consecutive again. So, does the longer action have to come first, in order to defuse that assumption?
Let’s try something else... She sat down and drank her tea. It makes sense for her to sit first, so that she is comfortable while drinking She drank her tea and sat down. Hmm, she could be doing both at once.
I’m out of ideas here. I've got to the point where I'm afraid that all the examples I can think of do fit my 'rule' (of timing, duration and the use of the word 'as') because I can’t see beyond it.
If you've stuck with this, so far, would you give me a bit more of your time and prove me wrong? Can you give me some examples using 'as' that break my 'rule' but still work?
PPS
"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things -
of shoes and ships and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings,
and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings."
~ The Walrus and The Carpenter ~
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 06:37 am (UTC)*brain explodes*
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 07:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 06:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 07:27 am (UTC)There is definitely a duration thing there, but is it a matter of tense?
I think you can use 'as' in the perfect tense, where two actions go on for a reasonable time (he talked as we walked down the street). And you can also use it with two quick actions (he cried out as he sat down).
But it seemed to me that it's when a short and a long action are mixed that you need to get into the imperfect, at least for one of them (He was crying as he sat down).
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 07:32 am (UTC)I think that would be better the other way round - "As we walked down the street, he talked." "As he sat down, he cried out."
Hmm.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 07:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 11:21 am (UTC)*is non-rebellious*
I worry about the punctuation in the Lewis Carol quote though. Shouldn't the list be divided by commas or semi-colons, otherwise the initial colon causes a problem?
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 11:30 am (UTC)You're probably right *goes to look again* I kind of typed it from memory and in my head I always pause between the lines. I'll fix that. Not sure why I put in the colon. I don't actually like them much - too authoritarian. *g* (is rebellious, occasionally)
Edited because that typo just didn't make sense and to add - I've changed it and the commas are debatable, but I'm leaving them. *g*
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 11:50 am (UTC)Had I time enough and no life I would check for a very old edition on google books or the like. But I am sternly telling myself not to be so OCD.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 12:04 pm (UTC)However, I'll leave it as is, this time.
See how I save you from the need to fight your OCDishness?
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 02:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-13 01:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-13 04:22 am (UTC)Totally unrelated
Date: 2009-08-15 10:23 am (UTC)Re: Totally unrelated
Date: 2009-08-17 10:00 am (UTC)