Hi everyone. I'm new here, and currently working on my first book. Thought I might get some help from you pros. I've written something involving the word 'rowdy', but I'm not quite sure if it's entirely correct. "Upon pushing the door open, the air was instantly filled with rowdy cheers and applause." I've tried googling it, but can't find an example where the word is used in this context. Hope someone can help. Thanks.
Adjective Noisy and disorderly: "it was a rowdy but good-natured crowd" I did skip grammar class: but if I were to just read the definition and then that sentence.. well then I'd tell you that it reads to me like a description of a description. That is what I have to offer.
I guess the easiest thing for me to do is to simply change 'rowdy' to 'lively' in that sentence. That would solve my problem. But I'm still curious as to whether it's completely wrong. I've asked a few people and got conflicting answers so I'm kind of scratching my head.
The Cambridge English Dictionary says that 'rowdy' can mean 'noisy and possibly violent behavior'. In that case 'lively' wouldn't be a good exchange. If you mean 'lively' then ok. But if you are meaning that, at some point the party may become violent, 'rowdy' would be the word. As far as the question - can a noise be rowdy? I don't think it can. The CED quotes - ' a rowdy party' but a 'rowdy noise' I can't see that's right.
Google rowdy usage As far as your sentence is concerned, it seems fine to me. Although the cheers and applause may not be, strictly speaking, rowdy, the impression is that the crowd from which those sounds issue are in a boisterous, unrestrained mood.
as a nit-picky editor, i'd say it's okay to refer to the crowd making all that noise as 'rowdy' but not the noise itself... another and more troubling problem with that sentence is that you have the 'air' opening the door!
Thanks for all the replies everyone. It's a lot more clearer to me now. @mammamaia Thank you for pointing that out. It didn't dawn on me that the 'air' could've been the one pushing the door. lol. It's my fault since I had to reword that sentence a little to put it up here, and it got sort of twisted. The full paragraph that goes with it probably makes a lot more sense: "After paying a small fee at the entrance, they continued down the hallway towards a door at the very end. Upon pushing it open, the air was instantly filled with lively cheers and applause, accompanied by an upbeat music playing in the background."
Unfortunately, this still has the air pushing the door open. You could change it to: "After paying a small fee at the entrance, they continued down the hallway towards a door at the very end. When they pushed the door open, the air was instantly filled with lively cheers and applause, accompanied by an upbeat music playing in the background." Edited to add: I'm returning to over-explain: Or "When the door was pushed open...." or "When the door opened...". It's the "Upon (verb), (noun) (verbed)" structure that means that the noun is taking both verb actions. If that makes any sense. I don't know the terminology for "upon" in this role, or I could explain this as a proper rule. Another example of this sort of thing is: John sat down to his dinner. After eating the steak, the dog barked loudly. This sentence literally says that the dog ate the steak. One possible rewrite is: John sat down to his dinner. After he ate the steak, the dog barked loudly. This is ambiguous, because "he" could be John or the dog, but it can mean John, so the sentence is not technically incorrect. To be clearer: John sat down to his dinner. He ate the steak, then looked up as the dog barked loudly. Some more: After shutting the door, the house was quiet. This literally says that the house shut the door. It could be: After the door was shut, the house was quiet. or After the guests shut the door, the house was quiet.
Thanks for the reply. Hmmm...I guess I may have misunderstood the word 'Upon' a little bit. It seems I had been trying to use it as an alternative to the moment/after. I've did some more research into it and I think I understand it a little better. I've decided to tweak the sentence to this: "After paying a small fee at the entrance, they continued down the hallway towards a door at the very end. The moment they pushed it open, the air was instantly filled with boisterous cheers and applause, accompanied by an upbeat music playing in the background." Hopefully, it's a lot better now. Thanks everyone!
