Competent Writing Skills (was Re: teacher rants)

[Joe Varo]

On Mon, 14 Jul 1997, S J Pate wrote:

> I'm no english/writing teacher, but that is most definitely a complete
> sentence, if a flowery one. I'm thinking the confusion arises from the use
> of "summer afternoons when the tar bubbles bloom in the road" as an
> adverbial phrase, after which there should be a comma, of course. The
> comma, along with a nice preposition, would render the sentence much clearer:
> 
> "[On] Summer afternoons when the tar bubbles bloom in the road, wild
> daisies beckon girls to seek petal fortunes and weave chains of fragrant
> dreams." 
> 
> Still a pretty bad sentence.

Is it really a complete sentence if you have to mentally supply the
preposition "on"?

If that's the case, then can we not, in light of the obvious poetic effect
that the author is striving for, perhaps assume that "summer afternoons"
is being apostrophized?  I.e., [O] summer afternoons, when the tar bubbles
bloom....

Nope...I'm still not convinced.

Joe