Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
I always remember a deal-breaker for me. In the first few pages of a book, the author described sheep's bellies as "swelling with incipient pregnancy." I was halted in my tracks. What is an incipient pregnancy and why would a belly swell with it? I couldn't get past it.
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I'm actually somewhat ok with that aspect of the sentence, as I reckon incipient can stretch to the earliest swelling of the belly. But there's a nasty dangler at the end:
"From the chimneys of scattered farmhouses and small stone cottages, smoke rose, straight as columns, up into the still air, and flocks of sheep, heavy with wool and incipient pregnancy, gathered around feeding troughs, stuffed with fresh hay."
(OK, OK, perhaps the sheep
were stuffed with fresh hay. But I don't think that's what we were supposed to think.)