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Example 1

He always does some crazy things and when he does, the girls freak out.

Can it be rewritten to the following without altering the original meaning,

Example 2

He always does some crazy things and the girls freak out.

Example 3

He always does some crazy things and the girls will freak out.

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    It's a bit of a weird thing to say, tbh
    – James K
    Commented Apr 18, 2023 at 10:18
  • @JamesK - it sounds like something very informal that teenagers or schoolchildren might say. The hyperbolic use of terms related to mental health ('crazy', 'freak out') suggest that. The boy isn't doing genuinely insane things, (we hope), and the girls are probably not having emotional meltdowns, but just giggling a bit. Commented Apr 18, 2023 at 11:30
  • The bit with will is not grammatical. The rest is fine. Of course, you can leave out "when he does". I see no reason to criticize this completely colloquial sentence.
    – Lambie
    Commented Apr 18, 2023 at 12:56
  • It's probably useful to express a connection between "he does some crazy things" and "the girls freak out", such as by using an adverbial expressing time or causation (e.g. "and when that happens the girls freak out"). Without it's hard to know exactly what is meant, but it's still grammatical.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Apr 18, 2023 at 13:20
  • To me, they're different, because the first expresses a causal connection, while the 2nd and 3rd do not. However it seems from the comments not everybody feels that's a significant difference. Maybe the OP should express what they want to say and what they think the different versions mean.
    – Stuart F
    Commented May 21, 2023 at 21:25

2 Answers 2

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It's contextual.

In example 1 it is clear that the girls are freaking out because of the crazy things he does.

In examples 2 and 3, the causal relationship is less clear. If within the context, there is another potential cause for the girls to freak out (other than the crazy things he does), it would be possible to interpret the sentence as a list of different reactions to a different stimulus (established by previous context).

For example, if the preceding sentence said "All the students have different reactions when there are thunderstorms outside." then we would not necessarily think that the crazy things he does cause the girls to freak out, they could be freaking out due to the thunderstorms.

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In coordinated constructions like this:

A {does | will do something} and B {does | will do something}.

the coordination with and is often intended to express a cause-and-effect relationship and in conversation it will usually be understood in that way, but a causal relationship is not entailed by coordination.

So feel free to say it that way in casual conversation; but you should be more explicit and not rely on "and" if you want to make sure your audience understands there is a causal connection.

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