sat weeping feet?

Needs commas!

"She sat, weeping, feet from her son when he was brought into court."

The Brits have some comma aversion, I've noticed. (They probably say we Americans like commas too much!)

Anyway, it means that she was only feet away from her son (a measurement, meaning a short distance), and sat there weeping as he was brought into court.

Not the greatest sentence.

(What a horrible story! )

It looks like there should be commas in there.

She sat, weeping, feet from her son.

Two sentences in one. 1. She sat feet from her son.
2. She sat weeping.



and in 1. they're talking about distance, not body parts.


Sooooo ... She sat several feet away from her son, as she wept.

I'm sure there's a nice grammatical explanation of how the sentence is formed.

Thanks! Got it now!

we really do have a silly language. Whenever someone calls it to our attention its a D'oh

Ah but we Brit's make up for it with the grocer's apostrophe.

e.g
Apple's 50p/lb

We've got millions of these, in fact they are traded on the Stock Market.

Laptop - selling short

Dave Barry (a humorist) once said that the purpose of the apostrophe is to alert people that an "s" is coming... His example was, "We do not except check's" (which has more than one error)!

hehehe

Weeping Feet
Yes, the comma does make a difference. But then "WEEPING FEET" sounds as if it would be a strong way to mean something else. Maybe 'weeping feet' would mean that one went on a long journey for naught; OR, describing someone who was together for a long time... and the other person left. The person who left had 'weeping feet' ?, because their feet, which took them away, caused weeping?

Language is an intriguing tool. It sure can lead to confusion. That must have been a typo in the newspaper, no?

Without commas, (and this is kinda icky, sorry) I'd say that "weeping feet" meant feet that had blisters on them that were oozing. :-? (NOT what was meant in the sentence cited, but in terms of other possible uses.)

Sozobe: your explanation goes right to the point.
But, yuk! oozing...:}

yup - good old weeping sores.

ichhhhhhhhhhh

"She sat weeping feet from her son .." is not so bad.

You wouldn't put a comma in "It was only inches away...", or

"He found he was miles from the nearest drugstore", or

"She sat feet from her son"

So it's not actually wrong to write "She sat weeping feet from her son", it's just a bit awkward, that's all, and an extra comma helps remove the ambiguity and makes the meaning clearer.

Yeah. I had been trying to figure out what is "weeping feet" before I made this thread, and finally found that was just much ado for nothing! LOL