Talk:Obu Toramasa

Notes on grammar and style

Exiled Ambition:

• One generally serves "under" a lord or clan, not "beneath" them. "Beneath" may be correct, I'm not sure, but "under" is certainly more common, and sounds smoother and more normal.
• A historical period, that is, a period of history, needs to be phrased as such. The Sengoku period is a period of Japanese history, not a period of Japan, nor of feudal Japan, which is not a proper noun in any case.
• What is meant by "conjectively"? As far as I can tell, it's not a word.
• "the reputed warrior of Takeda" - first, was he only reputed to be a warrior, or was he a warrior in fact? Was he, for that matter, a warrior of repute? Second, "warrior of Takeda" sounds awkward. "warrior of the Takeda clan" might be better; "Takeda retainer" or "Takeda clan retainer" also might be better.

Your articles absolutely do look much better since your return, and I do not mean to make light of that. But I am afraid your style still does need quite a bit of work. Certainly, I can only speak for myself and my own personal experiences with English, growing up in New York, and living in Boston and London - different people write and speak differently. Still, as a native speaker, I am afraid I find just about every single one of your sentences to sound awkward, to read strangely, even if they are not technically grammatically incorrect.

Take for example the last sentence of this article: "With Toramasa thus dead, he was still widely recognized for distinguishing his soldiers with scarlet-red armor, which he adopted from his younger brother, and encouraged, in length, by Ii Naomasa."

• What's the connection between Toramasa's death and the red armor?
• If Toramasa is dad, who is the "he" in "he was still widely recognized"? It implies you're talking about someone different, who carried on after Toramasa's death and continued Toramasa's practices.
• Instead of "which he adopted..." I think it'd be much clearer to write "a practice which he adopted...", so that the reader knows what is being adopted - the armor? the practice of using the armor? the soldiers?
• I know what is meant by the last bit only because I am familiar with the fact that Ii Naomasa is known for his scarlet-red armored armies. But, grammatically speaking, what does "and encouraged, in length, by Ii Naomasa" mean? Does it mean "Ii Naomasa then encouraged this practice extensively" or something like that? If so, it'd probably be best to phrase it that way, with the subject (Naomasa) first, and the object (the practice of using scarlet red armor) expressed clearly rather than implied. As it is, I find it very confusing to keep track of who is doing which action - is Toramasa encouraging the practice by Naomasa? And I think that other readers would be confused as well.

I apologize to get on your case about this; the amount that I've written might look like I am truly trying to attack you. I just thought it'd be helpful to see precisely the kinds of things that need to be fixed, the same kinds of issues which continue to pop up throughout your articles.

Thank you for hearing me out, and for taking what I have to say in the good faith in which it is offered. Ganbatte! LordAmeth (talk) 15:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)