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Originally Posted by arjaybe
The reason I asked the question is that it looks as if there's no way to say for sure. Quality of the writing aside, it's an example of an apparently unavoidable lack of clarity, without rewriting it.
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I can't imagine it being ambiguous in context.
Lots of perfectly good constructions are ambiguous out of context.
You'd have to go out of your way to craft a scene where it was ambiguous.
Just don't do this:
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Bob added the penultimate brush stroke to the grassy scene he and Fran were working on. He hovered his brush over the green paint bottle and said "The last time we painted like this was before you...I mean, when you were still...."
Fran darted her brush to the last bare spot on the canvas.
"Do you mean when I was dying?" Fran finished for him.
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EDIT:
On the other hand, the attribution is not strictly accurate.
"Do you mean...." was almost certainly
not how the other person was going to finish whatever he was saying.
Something to clearly indicate the 'finishing' might be more accurate, and therefore clearer as well, since Fran is clearly finishing a statement:
Quote:
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"...when I was dying?" Fran finished for him.
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