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I came across this rule in one of the youtube sentence structure video. It says that in case of using movement verbs, the position of manner(HOW) can or must switch places with the position of ‘where’. Link to the video the time is about 4:30 sentence examples

I tried to find a list of those movement verbs, I got some, but I’m not sure if they work like this. So what I need: the list of the movement verbs, which actually fit the rule. Or, at least check the list I’ve found on the Internet. Explanation of possible exceptions. And of course your comments on the whole thing. The rule seems to be quite … rare? I mean the Internet is quite dead about it.

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  • This sentence: "The bird flew to the branch with alarm to save its life." is not semantically right, and has a typo. It's instead of its. Also, I am not sure about the switching places idea. I would say this was not produced by a native English speaker....The internet is "'dead about it". What does that mean, please. English has too many verbs for there to a list of verbs of movement. "Catapults waited" is not a "verb of movement".
    – Lambie
    Commented Aug 25, 2018 at 15:12
  • Internet is dead about it means that I can't find anything about this rule. As for 'Catapults waited' that's an example of non movement verb, to see the difference.
    – Burglar
    Commented Aug 25, 2018 at 15:20
  • Sorry, I don't get your point at all. Maybe someone else will understand....
    – Lambie
    Commented Aug 25, 2018 at 15:34

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"The giants threw the stones at the cavalry with great force in the middle of their charge." Wow! This is terrible.

First, "with great force": Is it the cavalry that has great force? If it was the giants throwing stones with great force then that's what it should say. "The giants threw the stones with great force ..." Now it could be the stones that have great force. "The giants, with great force, threw the stones at the cavalry ..." That's better.

Second, "in the middle of their charge": Whose charge? The giants or the cavalry? Let's suppose it's the cavalry.

"With great force, the giants threw the stones at the cavalry, who were in the midst of charging."

"beautifully in the tree" vs. "to the tree with alarm": The former contains an adverb and a prepositional phrase, the latter contains two prepositional phrases. Same with the other two. Apples and oranges.

It's the adverbs that have to be with the verbs:

The bird flew quickly to the branch to save it's life. The runners ran hurriedly along the path.

And the prepositional phrases have to apply properly:

"The bird flew to the branch with alarm" Was it the bird or the branch that had the alarm? The bird? Then it would make more sense: "The bird flew with alarm to the branch ..." And is it the bird's life or the branch's that needed saving? "To save it's life, the bird flew ... to the branch" still ambiguous.

"The bird, to save it's life, flew with alarm to the branch."

Doesn't sound like a good video.

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  • I was under the impression, that adverbs shouldn't go between the movement verb and it's destination.
    – Burglar
    Commented Aug 27, 2018 at 3:58

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