Is this sentence correct?
The water had overflowed under the bridge.
I think its 'overflowed' shouldn't be in the place, but it seems like my friend sitting beside me is not in sure about this.
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Sign up to join this communityIs this sentence correct?
The water had overflowed under the bridge.
I think its 'overflowed' shouldn't be in the place, but it seems like my friend sitting beside me is not in sure about this.
This sentence is both correct and makes perfect sense.
"The water had overflowed" is, on the face of it, fine. Overflowed means to spill beyond capacity, and that's definitely a thing water sometimes does.
It's often followed by a description of what was overflowed, but there's no rule that says that has to be the case. Instead, here, the prepositional phrase "under the bridge" describes where the overflow happened.
Since it is rather normal for water to be under bridges, that's not at all surprising. More context would make it completely clear, but without that, I assume that a river or stream overflowed its banks below a high bridge.
Like this:
Or, alternately, it could be a bridge over a road, and water may have overflowed onto that road (or, using a slightly alternate meaning of "overflowed", simply overflowed the road). Like this:
Overflow means to flow over the edge of something. For example "the water had overflowed the dam" or "the water had overflowed the blocked toilet" are both correct.
To say "the water had overflowed under the bridge" does not seem to make sense. If you are describing water such as a river moving under a bridge, "the water flowed under the bridge" would be the usual form.
The water had overflowed under the bridge.
If we remove the bold part, then the sentence will be correct and will thus make sense.
But that would also mean that the bridge drowned. Like this:
But the best bet is to say it otherwise. Like, you can say:
The water level of the river rose, or
The water level of the river rose to abnormal heights
You can also say, "the river is flooding." If you specifically want to use "overflowed," then either remove the word "under" or mention what it overflowed under the bridge. Here is an excerpt from a book:
To the right a small pond overflowed under the bridge into the widening reservoir to the left.
I am not saying that your sentence is incorrect. Water can very well overflow under a bridge, but you need to mention what it overflowed.
More context would narrow down the situation.
indian-english
tag, and it can be a mistake, or maybe a simple misunderstanding of the word "overflowed" or something. Also note that the author chose the word "water" over "river' if that's what they are talking about. We normally say "river is flooding" or "...river overflowed," but "water overflowed under the bridge" is rightly wrong to me(within this context).