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Code:: She found the church matchbox, pocketed on accident as she stood in reminiscence.

Finding the matchbox in her pocket and pocketing it while standing in reminiscence happen at two different points in the narrative. While both are told in simple past here, is the sentence structure (just structure, not context) enough to make that clear? Or should I use a different tense?
In addition, does the missing comma in the second part of the sentence clarify that she doesn't find the church matchbox while standing in reminiscence, but pocketed it while standing in reminiscence? Because

Code:: She found the church matchbox, pocketed on accident, as she stood in reminiscence.

would imply the former.

Your sentence is grammatically correct, and you're right about the comma, but sans context, I'd want to see a "which had been" or "which she had" in front of "pocketed" to make it crystal clear. In context it's probably plenty clear already.

"Pocketed" is not in the simple past. It's a past participle that goes with the elided parts of a past perfect, as noted above. Pairing a simple past with a past perfect is de rigueur when describing two past actions that occurred at different times.

This is more a question of style than one of grammar. I'll just offer a bit of advice I personally find helpful.

If you ever have to ask yourself questions like the one in the OP, then there is something wrong. If you can't easily choose between one or the other, then neither is good. Nothing you write should ever seem awkward to you, or even potentially awkward. If it does, it means you need to rewrite it.

To answer your question, I think the first example you gave is less clear (and therefore worse) than the second. Don't worry so much about what's technically correct. What matters is how the reader might interpret it.

evilmike wrote:To answer your question, I think the first example you gave is less clear (and therefore worse) than the second. Don't worry so much about what's technically correct. What matters is how the reader might interpret it.

I have to disagree with you mightily on this point, evilmike. The second example sentence has a very different meaning, due entirely to grammar, in this case the placement of the second comma. Eats shoots and leaves, and all that.

Grimm wrote:
evilmike wrote:To answer your question, I think the first example you gave is less clear (and therefore worse) than the second. Don't worry so much about what's technically correct. What matters is how the reader might interpret it.

I have to disagree with you mightily on this point, evilmike. The second example sentence has a very different meaning, due entirely to grammar, in this case the placement of the second comma. Eats shoots and leaves, and all that.

Oh, I misunderstood something (somehow thought he was going for the meaning conveyed by the second one). I take back what I said there. I should probably be sleeping right now.

I stand by my original advice though. If you feel like a sentence is awkward and have to ask about it, then it could be written better.

I disagree with that too.

I'm not a native english speaker, so take cautiously my advice but to my eyes, the sentence both looks grammatically and syntactically correct.

If you're not sure the reader will understand your point about the timeline, I'd add some short information in order to disambiguate. Maybe

She found the church matchbox, pocketed on accident as she [[once|earlier]] stood in reminiscence|stood in reminiscence a moment ago].

But with that comma option (only one comma, not 0 or 2), I guess everybody will understand what you mean so I'll leave the sentence unmodified.

Eh. The first one is less easy to understand, and yes, I believe it implies the matchbox was pocketed during the reminiscence. Or at least that's how I read it.

Grimm wrote:Your sentence is grammatically correct, and you're right about the comma, but sans context, I'd want to see a "which had been" or "which she had" in front of "pocketed" to make it crystal clear. In context it's probably plenty clear already.

I was about to write this, but I realized someone had already. And I thought I was an early riser...

I think it would clear things up if you put "as she stood in reminiscence" at the beginning of the sentence and specify when the matchbox was pocketed (earlier), like this:

As she stood in reminiscence, she found the church matchbox, pocketed by accident earlier.

(I know you used "on accident", but I was taught in school that this is incorrect, I can't bear to use it myself. According to this link, you're probably okay to use it though: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on ... ident.aspx)

Blyxx wrote:I think it would clear things up if you put "as she stood in reminiscence" at the beginning of the sentence and specify when the matchbox was pocketed (earlier), like this:

As she stood in reminiscence, she found the church matchbox, pocketed by accident earlier.

This is the opposite of what he wants to convey.

Herode2 wrote:
Code:
She found the church matchbox, pocketed on accident as she [[once|earlier]] stood in reminiscence|stood in reminiscence a moment ago].

This might be slightly clearer but it is significantly clumsier, whichever of the bracketed words you delete. Better would be:

Code:: She found the church matchbox, pocketed on accident as she stood in reminiscence near the pulpit.

i.e. a detail from earlier in the text that will clearly locate the event in time for the reader. But I assure you whippersnappers that a past perfect indicates an action that took place earlier than one described by a simple past, quite handily on its own. That's what it's for. Mucking about with superfluous adverbial phrases is a mark of inferior writing.

I would always say "by accident" and "on accident" is unfamiliar to me - is this a standard usage for others here?

Confidence Interval wrote:I would always say "by accident" and "on accident" is unfamiliar to me - is this a standard usage for others here?

I was thinking the same thing, but figured it was an Americanism. "On accident" reads strangely to me and sounds even stranger out loud.

I have never noticed these before. They sound almost interchangeable to me, though I'd probably say "by" myself.

Grimm wrote:This is the opposite of what he wants to convey.

Wow, I guess I was looking so hard for something to be wrong with the sentence that I failed to properly read what he was trying to do. Way to blow my first post!

BlackSheep wrote:
Confidence Interval wrote:I would always say "by accident" and "on accident" is unfamiliar to me - is this a standard usage for others here?

I was thinking the same thing, but figured it was an Americanism. "On accident" reads strangely to me and sounds even stranger out loud.

Since I'm half Scottish and have only spoken British English and German for all my life, that is very unlikely and it's probably just a mistake to be fixed (Americanisms are also a mistake to be fixed in the context of a novella in British English...). Any AE can only have came into my speech over the internet. Anyway, the sentence uses "by" now.

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