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A comment on Crossing the Sahara in the Fourteenth Century. Parent comment

Re:Crossing the Sahara in the Fourteenth Century by plouffy on Thursday November 15, 2018 @10:25AM (#18459936)
I'm not convinced.

> In the past, the severed heads of these Berber bandits covered the ground of the palace at Sijilmasa; there were highwaymen, then, who stopped you across the Sahara en route to the Land of the Blacks.

I don't know what's trying to be said here.

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Re:Crossing the Sahara in the Fourteenth Century by oh_sigh on Thursday November 15, 2018 @02:05PM (#18462184)
Is english your native language? This seems like a pretty straightforward sentence.
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Re:Crossing the Sahara in the Fourteenth Century by pier25 on Thursday November 15, 2018 @10:40AM (#18460074)
What's confusing you?
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Re:Crossing the Sahara in the Fourteenth Century by kerbalspacepro on Thursday November 15, 2018 @10:57AM (#18460246)
It is a confusing sentence. Semicolons are stupid and shouldn't be used anymore. It has a random "then" thrown in there for no reason.
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Re:Crossing the Sahara in the Fourteenth Century by jacquesm on Thursday November 15, 2018 @11:09AM (#18460370)
Try reading it out loud. Keep in mind that the original is in French and this is a translation of that French text so you are probably more at war with the translator than with the writer. Even so, to me - also a non-native English speaker - there wasn't a sentence in the article that I could not understand, sometimes it just takes a bit more effort.
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Re:Crossing the Sahara in the Fourteenth Century by pier25 on Thursday November 15, 2018 @11:01AM (#18460285)
A bit poetic maybe, but it sounds fine to me. Maybe because English is not my first language.
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Re:Crossing the Sahara in the Fourteenth Century by tralarpa on Thursday November 15, 2018 @11:10AM (#18460391)
I am not a native speaker and always eager to improve. I understood the "then" as "at that time (in the past)". Is that wrong?
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Re:Crossing the Sahara in the Fourteenth Century by cco on Thursday November 15, 2018 @12:14PM (#18461114)
That is correct.
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Re:Crossing the Sahara in the Fourteenth Century by CogitoCogito on Thursday November 15, 2018 @11:05AM (#18460329)
I find the sentence very confusing, but I don't think it has anything to do with semicolons. It just seems like unclear writing to me.
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