While the other boys and girls knocked on doors and asked for treats this Halloween, my neighbours' children stayed at home because
their parents did not believe it was appropriate for them to participate in a pagan festival that celebrated death and the occult.
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While another child knocked on doors and asked for treats this Halloween, my neighbours' child stayed at home because her mother did not believe it was appropriate for her to participate in a pagan festival that celebrated death and occult.
While another boy and a girl knocked on a door and asked for a treat this Halloween, my neighbour's child stayed at home because his parent did not believe it was appropriate for him to participate in a pagan festival that celebrated death and the occult.
Michael, is my assumption correct that we're not supposed to change ALL nouns from plural to singular and vice versa? Should we change festival to festivals here?
I have the same question than Olena140. Depends the answer, my answer will be: "While another boy and girl knocked on a door and asked for a treat this Halloween, my neighbour’s child stayed at home because his father did not believe it was appropriate for him to participate in pagan festivals that celebrated deaths and occults. " or "While another boy and girl knocked on a door and asked for a treat this Halloween, my neighbour’s child stayed at home because his father did not believe it was appropriate for him to participate in a pagan festival that celebrated deaths and occults. "
Olena and Audrey,
This is just practice, so there are no hard and fast rules -- as long as your answer is grammatically (and stylistically) defensible. The real challenge is to figure out what can and what cannot be pluralized. In this case, "festivals" is fine -- but "deaths" is questionable (since it is being used as an abstract concept rather than something countable) and "occults" is incorrect (as it is never pluralized).
While a boy and a girl knocked on a door and asked for a treat this Halloween, my neighbour’s child stayed at home because a parent did not believe it was appropriate for the child to participate in pagan festivals that celebrated death and the occult.
While another boy and girl knocked on a door and asked for a treat this Halloween, my neighbour’s child stayed at home because his father did not believe it was appropriate for him to participate in pagan festivals that celebrated death and occult.
Thank you Michael for a clarification. In this case if the task was to change all nouns possible to the opposite, I would like to update my previous reply to:
While another boy and a girl knocked on a door and asked for a treat this Halloween, my neighbour's child stayed at home because his parent did not believe it was appropriate for him to participate in pagan festivals that celebrated death and the occult.
(The difference from the original post is in bold font.)
Well done, everyone!
But, Liudmila, the indefinite in the phrase "a parent" is a little awkward, as we have an idea about which parent it was: his (or her) parent.
While the boy and girl knocked on our door and asked for a treat this Halloween, my neighbors' child stayed home as mother and father did not believe it was appropriate for their child to participate in a pagan that celebrated death and occult.
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