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Confused by a sentence from a children's picture book! Sergent Murphy was busy putting parking tickets on cars WHEN, SUDDENLY, WHO SHOULD COME RUNNING OUT OF THE MARKET BUT Bananas Gorilla. He had stolen a bunch of bananas, and was trying to escape. The above words are from a picture book for children. The words written in capital letters are the part that I can not figure its meaning out. All those words are 'easy', but it is hard to guess when putting together.
Jun 2, 2015 1:15 AM
Answers · 2
1
'When' means that Bananas came out at the time when Murphy was ticketing the cars. 'Suddenly' means that Bananas came out quickly. 'Who should come out' is a rhetorical question. Because it is written as a story, the writer is asking the listeners to guess who came out. Does that help?
June 2, 2015
1
A simple way of saying this is "Sergent Murphy was busy putting parking tickets on cars WHEN SUDDENLY Bananas Gorilla CAME RUNNING OUT OF THE MARKET. He had stolen a bunch of bananas, and was trying to escape." "who should X but Y" is a dramatic way of saying X happened before revealing that Y is the subject of the action. It's not commonly used. Another form of this may be: "Who should come running out of the market? None other than Bananas Gorilla!"
June 2, 2015
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