Grammar Nazi Question

N

Nonagon

Still Mildly Glowing
A simple(or not so simple) question:

Is this sentence grammatically correct?

"I dropped my apple onto the floor and it fell in half."

Discuss.
 
I would say "...it fell in half." would be incorrect. Things can break apart into two halves due to a fall, but the act of falling alone would be insufficient, as it is the impact that truly splits the apple.
 
I wonder why that is? Wouldn't the context assume that it fell, hit the ground, and broke into two pieces?
 
It would, and I am not wholly certain that I am correct, but it seems to me that it sounds very off to say it in that way. It sounds more like the result of a dialect than anything else.
 
Grammatically it is correct.

Semantically, dropping an apple in half makes less sense, but it's still possible.

Remember Chomsky: "Colourless green dreams sleep furiously." Grammatically that is a perfect sentence, but it does show the limits of conventional grammar. It would work in a poem, though. "Green dreams" could be one's lust for money, for instance. And so on.
 
Hehe. That's possible too, I guess. But common sense should tell you that that is an invalid interpretation.
 
it feels like there should be a comma after floor.

but it is worded wrong by my gut feeling.

and no, not the floor.

the noun is apple and verb is dropped.

by the way its worded, the apple was split in half by the act of dropping not hitting the floor.

but, gramatically its correct, by the meaning of the sentance it is wrong.
 
Intensely pondering about the pettiness of English grammar, I suddenly lost my otherwise firm grip on the apple and it couldn't help but fall to the floor, breaking in half in the process.
I win.
 
fa2241 said:
A simple(or not so simple) question:

Is this sentence grammatically correct?

"I dropped my apple onto the floor and it fell in half."

Discuss.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't that be "Fell apart"?
 
Mikael Grizzly said:
Shouldn't that be "Fell apart"?
Click to expand...

Not exactly. Being divided "apart" and "in half" are not the same. Apart does not specify the number of pieces said object broke into, half implies it broke into two relatively equal pieces.
 
Language isn't logic, it's a very flexible thing.

"I dropped my apple onto the floor and it fell apart, leaving me with two halves ;_;"
 
In that case, I elect that everyone switch to Esperanto to avoid shitty language conundrums like this in the future.
 
"The apple fell to the floor and split into two halves."

Or:

"I was holding an apple and when I dropped it, it hit the floor and split into two halves."
 
DarkLegacy said:
"The apple fell to the floor and split into two halves."

Or:

"I was holding an apple and when I dropped it, it hit the floor and split into two halves."
Click to expand...

Again, this implies that the distribution of the two _part_ of the apple is 50-50. Is this what we are aiming at here?
 
Yes, we could always say 'two uneven halves' if we're unsure about the manner of which the apple was split in half, or 'two fragments', or 'two pieces'. :lol:
 
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