People aren't Aspergers! They HAVE Asperger's!

[saoirse]

@phouka

Well, sure, Spoke. “Burst” implies that the internal pressure of an object overcame the tensile strength of the object’s surface, and as a result, the entire object ruptures and loses integrity. Balloons burst. Bubbles burst. People burst with [insert some random non-concrete noun].

Busted has a more colloquial tenor to it, less formal than broke. It’s a transitive noun and requires agency. I busted my elbow once, falling off a bike. The firefighter busted the door down to rescue the child. The women busted the window when they fell onto it during horseplay. “The women burst the window” doesn’t make sense, because it’s an intransitive verb. You have to throw in a preposition and create a prepositional phrase “through the window” to make it work. I like busted because it has a sense of Wild West brawling that the women in question were probably not far from.

(Um . . . the fact that I wrote the above is evidence that there is something seriously wrong with me. Maybe I need to kidnap a class of 11-year-olds and give them grammar lessons. Just now, I think I’ll have a little lie-down.)

Okay, so why wouldn’t you use “broke?” I can’t see how busted is preferable in any of your examples.

[phouka]

Personal preference. I think busted is less formal but still completed valid. Broke is more formal and completely valid. Busted through implies the women ended up on the other side of the window, which I don’t think is accurate. Burst through implies the same thing, only it doesn’t tell us if the window was open or closed or sustained any damage, while busted tells us it did.

However, we’re arguing over mustard seeds right now. So long as the information was communicated, the writer did their basic job. Beyond that, you can argue formality, style, usage, dialect, and colloquialisms to your heart’s content, but those are a matter of taste.

[Spoke]

@phouka

Busted through implies the women ended up on the other side of the window, which I don’t think is accurate.

Ah, some confusion there.

Yes, they burst through (to the other side of) the window…and fell several stories to the ground.

[Yllaria]

@Nzinga_Seated

Us crazy.

We crazy, too.

@phouka

. . .
(Um . . . the fact that I wrote the above is evidence that there is something seriously wrong with me. Maybe I need to kidnap a class of 11-year-olds and give them grammar lessons. Just now, I think I’ll have a little lie-down.)

Is it sad that I keep thinking that there’s a short story in that? That would be sixth-graders, right?

And these Aspie dogs - do they come when you call them?