We sit currently

Just trying to flesh out your question-- you're thinking "We currently sit on a rural road" should've gone something like "We are currently located on a rural road" instead? You're worried about whether the verb "to sit" can be used that way?

If I've correctly interpreted your question, then my answer is don't sweat it. Perhaps somebody could make a joke out of the possible double-meaning, but the usage seems fine. Certainly nothing that would cause a blip in a business email.

jsoc1 said:

I know I'm overthinking this.

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You're overthinking this.

Personally, if I stare at any sentence too long, it will start to sound wrong.

No worries!

"We currently sit on a rural road." is grammatically completely correct. It might not be the best style, depending on the rest of your email and what your larger point(s) was/were.

"my companies equivalent of the reply all button" is, however, grammatically incorrect. ;-) It should be "my company's equivalant".

GregFH said:

"We current sit on a rural road." is grammatically completely correct.

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No it is not. We currently sit on a rural road.

GregFH said:

"my companies equivalent of the reply all button" is, however, grammatically incorrect. ;-) It should be "my company's equivalant".

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No. My companies’ equivalent of the "reply-all” button would be closer, given that it is still an incomplete sentence.

jsoc1 said:

"We currently sit on a rural road." After reviewing it I thought it sounded awful. Given the chance, I would most certainly restructure the sentence, "We currently sit.." .

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Those are identical, so I'm not sure what the question is. "We currently sit" looks fine to me. Whereas the title of this thread "We sit currently" sounds awkward to my ear.

Oh, and if the placement of an adverb is the only thing you're stressing over after having accidentally sent a reply to the entire company, then I'd say you can be thankful.

AW Admin said:

No. My companies’ equivalent of the "reply-all” button would be closer, given that it is still an incomplete sentence.

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But 'companies' is the plural of 'company'. We're only talking about the reply-all button of a single company. Right?

Go on- if the whole company has read it....

jsoc1 said:

You know what, I messed up the question. In the email, I wrote, "We sit currently on a," and it sounded funky to me.

So is that grammatically improper?

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I think, if you want to use it that way around, it should be 'We sit, currently, on a....'

jsoc1 said:

You know what, I messed up the question. In the email, I wrote, "We sit currently on a," and it sounded funky to me.

So is that grammatically improper?

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It sounds funky to you because "currently" is a modifier for "sit" and for the English-trained ear a modifier preceding the verb is the normal(ish) flow. So, "We currently sit on a . . ." is the correct structure.

As a note, currently is almost always unnecessary. Exceptions would be if "we" are prone to moving around or a move is planned. If removing currently doesn't change the meaning of the sentence, it is unnecessary.

AW Admin said:

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No it is not. We currently sit on a rural road.
That was my typo.


No. My companies’ equivalent of the "reply-all” button would be closer, given that it is still an incomplete sentence.

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Only in the highly unlikely event he was working for more than one company at the same time.

BethS said:

Oh, and if the placement of an adverb is the only thing you're stressing over after having accidentally sent a reply to the entire company, then I'd say you can be thankful.

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We see verb followed-adverb construction at least as often as we see adverb-verb construction. As a reader, I see nothing wrong with either; neither example in the OP is confusing. it's a style issue , rather than a grammar issue, and I doubt very many editors would get exercised much over it.

caw

jsoc1 said:

You know what, I messed up the question. In the email, I wrote, "We sit currently on a," and it sounded funky to me.

So is that grammatically improper?

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No. An adverb can be placed before or after the verb it modifies, but depending on the particular verb/adverb combo, one arrangement may sound better than another.

Ari Meermans said:

It sounds funky to you because "currently" is a modifier for "sit" and for the English-trained ear a modifier preceding the verb is the normal(ish) flow. So, "We currently sit on a . . ." is the correct structure.

As a note, currently is almost always unnecessary. Exceptions would be if "we" are prone to moving around or a move is planned. If removing currently doesn't change the meaning of the sentence, it is unnecessary.

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Yep. On the money.

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JimmyB27 said:

But 'companies' is the plural of 'company'. We're only talking about the reply-all button of a single company. Right?

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The quote I responded to used companies incorrectly. See the quoted passage.

There is also the possibility of using the adverb in this way, for emphasis:

"We sit, currently, in . . . "

Again, that's a style issue.

caw

blacbird said:

There is also the possibility of using the adverb in this way, for emphasis:

"We sit, currently, in . . . "

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Or--

Currently, we sit...

English, because of its history of being imposed on people who did not learn it perfectly (first Celts, then the Normans), has lost much of its inflection. With that has gone much of the flexibility of word order since often the part of speech can only be discerned by the position in the sentence. When I first studied Latin in my first year of high school, it was amazing to see how a Latin sentence could be written in any number of ways and not change its meaning. In the sentence "I gave the boy the dog", transposing dog and boy completely changes the meaning, which is something that would not happen in any of the other Indo-European languages (because the articles and/or the nouns would inflection endings on them indicating which is the direct object and which the indirect object).

One of the few exceptions to this inflexibility of word order are adverbs ending in -ly, which can only be adverbs. That's one reason they can be placed with a great deal of flexibility.