The sentence I'm having problem with is: "I shoved earphones on and turned the volume up. " You put earphones on? in? Can you shove them? What I want to say is that he put the earphones violently in his ears. Saying "I put the earphones" doesn't give the strength I want to come across. The only word that came to my mind was "shove", but it's not sounding quite right. Help? Thanks in advance
'put' is accurate... 'shoved' makes no sense... but you could use 'slammed on' or 'slapped on' i suppose...
I think you could shove in-ear earphones in. Headphones and the sort of earphones that hook over the ear I would put on and wouldn't be able to shove.
It has nothing to do with the preposition, of course. It's all about the verb choice. But the other actions taking place around the same time can reinforce the mood. You don't have to do itall with the one verb.
Yeah, the title of the thread ended up being inaccurate, 'cause I thought my real problem was the on/in thing and ended up being the verb. You have a point about the actions reinforcing the mood. I'm making sure they do. Either way, using the right verb in that sentence makes everything more... er... perfect. Well, I just want to make sure the right image comes across. EDIT: ear buds? I'm sure that's a synonym for earphones. Right? I can't find it in any dictionary...
Earuds are a common type of headphone, where the bulb at the end of the wire is inserted into the outer portion of the ear canal. Very comon with MP3 players, iPods,and the like.
Yeah, that's what I figured. I wonder why there aren't matching results when I look it up... Anyways, thanks for your help.
results from looking up 'earbuds': http://www.google.com/webhp?rls=ig#sclient=psy&hl=en&rls=ig&site=webhp&source=hp&q=earbuds&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=8d2f817f55bce91b
Slapping and Punching headphones on seems painful lol. When I imagine it...why couldn't put just work? Or shove? as you can shove them into your ear...well the earbud ones, if you want the character to do it violently.. You can shove them in..right? Hope this helped..
That's what I thought, but apparently you can't shove them in. It is supposed to be violent. He's furious with a young fellow he's stuck with in his home. The boy is screaming at the other side of his bedroom door, provoking him. In order not to go there and punch him, he tries to shut him up by listening to music. The excerpt goes like this: I just think that "I put earphones on and turned the volume up" isn't strong enough in the said situation. Am I wrong?
Stuffed is fine. When I read it, I imagined him struggling, clumsily to get into his ears.And that's what you wanted the reader to imagine right? Shove does sound painful....now that I look at it lol. By just saying 'put' it doesn't really show that he was in a hurry, like stuffed does.
Stuck it in sounds pretty good, or maybe "struggled to get his/her headphones in, as he/she was in such a hurry." Or something related to that.
