On Fri, 04 Jul 2014 02:07:25 -0600, Jymesion    
   wrote:   
      
      
   >   
   >I don't know the proper way to phrase this:   
   >   
   >As she shook her head, her hair, if it had been there, would have   
   >fallen across her face.   
   >   
   >The construction would be:   
   >   
   >As she shook her head, her hair fell across her face.   
   >   
   >The parenthetical expression "if she had been there" shouldn't change   
   >that. But:   
   >   
   >As she shook her head, her hair, if it had been there, fell across her   
   >face.   
   >   
   >just doesn't scan.   
   >   
   >I've tried rebuilding the sentence from scratch, but nothing I come up   
   >with works. They either don't carry the gist or are too long, too   
   >wordy for a line of atmosphere.   
   >   
   >Can anyone help?   
      
   The antecedent of "it" in "if it had been there" is unclear. You can't   
   resolve the problem because you haven't made clear whether she's bald   
   or not there. The sentence implies bald.   
      
   --   
   Can somebody please help me?   
   I don't understand what the difference is between   
   Islamist Jihadist and Hobby Lobby?   
   They both seem to feel that it is okay to harm others   
   in the name of God.   
   Maybe it's more quantitative instead of qualitative.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)