“from” vs. “off”
July 24th, 2007 by Amelia June
One crit I received indicted that each time I used the word “off” in a certain context, I should have used “from” instead.
To wit:
Jen pushed Katya’s hands off her shoulders.
According to the grammar expert the sentence should read “from her shoulders.”
I’m not sure this is always true–it might be grammatically correct, but pushing someone’s hands OFF of you has a feel I like–in this sentence particularly. What do you think, should I bow to the grammar god, or go with the feel of it? Am I the only one who thinks this feels good?
Or does it even matter?
(ps, let’s for now call this my week of editing during my 70 days of sweat, shall we? Sigh.)
Posted in the bell curve, writing
July 25th, 2007 at 2:29 am
Ooh, I really like the cover of your new book. It’s sooooo hooooot.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:17 am
LOL, thanks Carolyn–Jason is a unique specimen of man…
July 26th, 2007 at 9:35 am
I think you should go with what sounds right to you. Too many people worry too much about grammatical errors rather than enjoying the story. Mind you, I don’t think that gives an author license to just misspell everything and not feel like they owe the reader the effort to correct them. That shows a lack of caring for their work. I think it is a fine balance of the two.
July 26th, 2007 at 9:56 am
That’s true, Cherie, I hate it when my work looks unprofessional because of bad grammar and I do my best to ferret out the glaring errors and typos and spelling and badly constructed run on sentences (hee).
But sometimes you just have to go with it…
July 31st, 2007 at 9:14 pm
The dictionary is constantly adding word that used to be incorrect because they have become so popularly used. I think the grammer rules should be reflection current useage too. If it doesn’t flow, it jerks the reader out of the story.