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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3085 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 15, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Hefting his mace, he swung at her as hard as he could

Is that changing tenses? Consider the sentence 'While running, he saw Steve'. 'While running' modifies the verb 'saw', but it's not present tense on its own. It could also be written as 'He saw Steve while running' which makes it more obvious.

It's not 1:1 with your example, because he's not swinging while he is hefting it. He would heft it first, then swing. So it would be more similar to "going for a run, he showered off the sweat and went to sleep".

"Going for a run, he showers off the sweat" is no more correct, so it's not really about the tense here. "Going for a run, he listens to music" is only very slightly better. The issue isn't actually that the latter action has to take place during the former; it's that "going for a run" is actually a description of a static event, describing the start of the run.

So I'd say that "going for a run, he stepped out the door" is actually more correct than either of the other two, and also more in-line with the original example. It's an odd case where the sentence structure only works if the latter action is somewhat taken while the start of the former action is happening.

"Starting his run, he stepped out the door" is best of all. Or "Following the man, he stepped through the door behind him." In both cases the former action sort of describes and informs the latter but is also an action in its own right. I'd argue this is precisely what's happening in the sentence you described too. "Hefting" isn't actually separate from swinging the mace; it's a description that informs the swinging of the mace, similar to "Using all his strength, he swung the mace."

There's nothing ungrammatical about it, it's just bad writing.

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