Subj : Women don't like rain
To   : mark lewis
From : Ardith Hinton
Date : Sat Jun 15 2019 23:56:08

Hi, Mark!  Recently you wrote in a message to Alexander Koryagin:

 AK>  My mother answered her that the doctor would not know
 AK>  if she was turning blue with that stuff on.

 ml>  or ordered slightly differently...

 ml>  My mother answered her that with that stuff on, the
 ml>  doctor would not know if she was turning blue.

 ml>  i make this distinction because of the question is she
 ml>  turning blue /because/ of the stuff or is the stuff
 ml>  simply hiding the possible blueness...


           I also struggled with matters of clarity in this tale.  It's obvious 
to me that if a person's lips and/or nail beds seem to be turning blue the most 
likely explanation is that... for whatever reason... these areas aren't getting 
enough oxygen.  I learned such things many years ago when I babysat a girl with 
a heart defect... and my mother was acquainted with her & other family members. 
What's obvious to some individuals may not be to others, though, and the reader 
shouldn't have to guess which alternative the writer had in mind.  Your comment 
evoked a memory of a visit to the GP's office in which our daughter admired his 
female colleague's nail polish.  That's another alternative... [chuckle].

           Being a Canadian with ex-Brit roots I'd add a comma before "with" in 
Alexander's version, and in your version too.  I interpret "with that stuff on" 
as a parenthetical expression, i.e. a qualifying or explanatory remark which in 
mid-sentence is generally used with a comma on either side but which may be set 
apart with dashes or ellipses when we're writing colloquially in FidoMail.  :-Q




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

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