Subj : Cough
To   : Ardith Hinton
From : alexander koryagin
Date : Mon Aug 21 2017 17:48:41

Hi, Ardith Hinton!
I read your message from  14.08.2017 09:20
about Cough.

 PQ>>> It's a simple question, Alexander, but not one with an easy
 PQ>>> answer...
 ak>> It was difficult compose a short story either. ;) A real situation
 ak>> took more time to be described.

 AH> Are you saying that although it's not difficult for you to compose
 AH> a short work of fiction, you understand it may take longer for
 AH> others to write an intelligent response... or are you saying your
 AH> story about "Mr Woulf" is true & therefore you're trying to report
 AH> as accurately as possible what happened?

I wanted to write "A real situation would have taken more time to be 
explained." So I tried to invent a more simple situation where I could ask my 
question. The question about the sound of coughing in a written story. You told 
about "Ahem, Ahem!" But suppose I describe a goose who had caught cold. Will 
you still use "Ahem, Ahem" describing his coughing? In Russia we feel more free 
on this account. We can write: "Gkhe, Gkhe!", cried the sick goose.

 AH> One reason I'm asking is that the spelling of this individual's
 AH> name strikes me as rather unusual. If that is indeed his name, I
 AH> won't argue.

It was just a name.

 AH> Over the years I've met a lot of people who insist their name is
 AH> pronounced "Smith", e.g., while they spell it "Smythe" & other
 AH> folks who spell their names the same way pronounce it differently.
 AH> OTOH if you're transliterating a Russian surname which sounds
 AH> like "wolf" (canis lupus) or if you want a pseudonym which looks &
 AH> sounds like English I'd suggest "Wolfe" or "Woolf", both of which
 AH> are listed in the Metro Vancouver telephone directory & both of
 AH> which I've seen elsewhere.

Do you mean that the first name always should mean something? The word can we 
taken from another language and not necessary means anything for an English 
speaker. A person can choose a rare name to be unique, for instance. You can 
probably find many thousands of Woolfs, but Mr Woulf can be unique, and in this 
case his story will be the first line returned by a Google search. ;-)

 ak>> A girl-seller sits behind the counter in a shop, reads a book and
 ak>> doesn't watch around.

 AH> I'd say "looks around" (intransitive verb + adverb) there. If she'd
 AH> been aware that there was some action going on she might have
 AH> watched it... but she was so engrossed in her book that she didn't
 AH> notice what was going on. :-)

Yes.

Bye, Ardith!
Alexander Koryagin
ENGLISH_TUTOR 2017

--- Paul's Win98SE VirtualBox
 * Origin: Quinn's Post - Maryborough, Queensland, OZ (3:640/384)

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