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there is a 'word-order' quastion. Usage of pronoun "who" and adverb "where" in one sentence, example:

  • ...since I met in Kalamazoo that artist, he came up to me and said...

or

  • ...since I met that artist in Kalamazoo, he came up to me and said...

Could the first variant be acceptable? Thank You very much.

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    meet + person + place. The other does not work.
    – Lambie
    Feb 19 at 17:24
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    (also) meet + object + place + time expression "I met him at university several years ago" (without "since")
    – Mari-Lou A
    Feb 19 at 18:22
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    Please provide the full sentence. I find the presence of since jarring with the rest of the fragment. …since I met John, he came up to me... not quite right, unless "since" is used to mean because / for that reason?
    – Mari-Lou A
    Feb 19 at 18:27
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    @JamesK It's my example, not a quote
    – Andrew
    Feb 19 at 19:04
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    The construction is not quite right, try replacing since with when as in “… when I first met that hippie who came up to me and said* ...” .
    – Mari-Lou A
    Feb 19 at 19:32

1 Answer 1

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Generally, locative prepositional phrases such as "in Kalamazoo" come after the direct object of the verb. For the verb "met" in this example, the direct object is "that artist". So only the second sentence is "correct" English. If the prepostitional phrase is inserted between the verb and object (for poetic or stylistic reasons) it would normally be set-off by commas or brackets:

I met (in Kalamazoo) that artist...

Sometimes, prepositional phrases can also be placed at the start of the sentence. That would not be possible here, as it would interfere with the word "since".

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6
  • And I can't think of any exceptions off the top of my head.
    – James K
    Feb 19 at 17:38
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    I find the OP's usage of since jarring. Do they mean "because" or "ago/from that moment"?
    – Mari-Lou A
    Feb 19 at 18:24
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    It's a stylistic choice. Just because we nearly always choose one sequence doesn't mean the other is "incorrect". It's just "the road less travelled".
    – FumbleFingers
    Feb 20 at 4:09
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    @FumbleFingers I edited.
    – James K
    Feb 20 at 6:00
  • I assume that when Ezra Pound wrote the sentence I linked to under the question, he figured it was the lesser of two evils. The "default" sequence for multiple consecutive adverbial elements would have given In 1919 I met a quiet little man, Ambassador at the time, in Paris whom my father remembered... Or even worse, in Paris could end up right at the end of the sentence! Which is okay with I met a man who I knew in Paris, but there's a limit to how long the reader / audience can hang on waiting for that final locative prepositional phrase! :)
    – FumbleFingers
    Feb 20 at 11:21

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