You should have refused to come and explained that you had a fear of heights.

S

Stephanagreg

Senior Member
FRANCE FRENCH
Hello,

Could I ask you what you think of the following sentence ? (I am sorry I cannot provide any context, for this sentence was in fact suggested, and then rejected by an English teacher as the translation of a French sentence given in a translation exercise) :

You should have refused to come and explained that you had a fear of heights.

Many thanks in advance for your impressions.
 
    • You might tell us, in different words, the precise intent of the original.

    There is nothing at all wrong with the grammar or style of the sentence. A comma after come would be an option, but I don't think it is required.

    Is this what the skydiving instructor said to the vomitting, terrified person in the plane?
     
    I am afraid no context whatsoever is provided when this type of sentences are given to the students.

    The reason I was asking was that, after considering proposing it as a suggested translation of the original sentence (in French), a friend of mine got persuaded that there was something wrong with the coordination of 'refused' and 'explained'. When he told me about it and asked me what I thought, I somewhat felt that there was something wrong as well, without being able to tell exactly what it was.

    But then I reconsidered the sentence and began to wonder if it was not perfectly acceptable after all.

    Thanks a lot for your feedback, Cuchuflete.
     
    After staring at the sentence again, I can see a possible objection by the teacher, but it would depend on the tenses used in the original.

    explained that you had a fear of heights.
    Click to expand...

    The sentence begins with 'should have' and then switches to
    'had'. The implication might be that the fear of heights was temporary, rather than an ongoing state that extends into the present. Still, there is nothing wrong with the English sentence as you have presented it. Whether it is a good translation is beyond the scope of the English Only forum.
    You might wish to discuss it further in FR<=>EN.
     
    Thanks to you both, Cuchuflete and Stranger in your midst.

    Cuchuflete ---> In fact, I was not concerned about the acceptability of the translation, but only with the stylistic accuracy of the English sentence.

    Stranger in your midst ---> Why would you say that

    You should have refused to come and explain (...) works better ?
     
    You have to use the infinitive of 'explain' after 'come and', or even after 'refused' for that matter ('come to' is actually superflu). Just the same as in French.
     
    Thanks for that. (But the meaning was supposed to be : You should have refused to come and you should have explained that you had a fear of heights.)
     
    Stephanagreg said:
    You should have refused to come and explain (...) works better ?
    Click to expand...
    You should have refused to come and explained that you had a fear of heights.
    (You should have refused to come. You could have explained that you had a fear of heights.)

    You should have refused to come and explain that you had a fear of heights.
    (You should have refused to come and explain your fear of heights.)

    Both are grammatically correct, but with completely different meanings.
    JD
     
    jdenson said:
    You should have refused to come and explain that you had a fear of heights.
    (You should have refused to come and explain your fear of heights.)
    Click to expand...
    I agree with JD that there is no grammatical problem with this. There is a stylistic problem. Colloquial English often uses forms such as "I'm going to come and tell him a thing or two."

    The "come and" part is clear in most contexts. In the sentence from post #1, however, it would not be. It implies that the person being addressed had a choice about both explaining something and about coming to do so. "You should have refused to come" seems independent of the explaining that wasn't done.
     
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