Expression: The wooden cupboard to his right gave way...

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hi

Could you please tell me how the given sentence sounds to you? Is it grammatically OK?

1- The wooden cupboard to his right gave way and came tumbling on him.

Tom

2

Hi Tom

I’d add the word “down”:

The wooden cupboard to his right gave way and came tumbling down on him.

3

And I’d have said: ‘The wooden cupboard on his right…’.

4

Could you say ‘came tumbling down onto him’? I know onto isn’t exactly commonplace, but I think it might be correctly used here as a preposition.

5

Hi Pyro

Using the word “onto” is also OK. In fact, “onto” has a sense of motion in it since it literally means “to a position on”.

Amy

6

Thanks for clarifying! I wasn’t too sure whether that would work or not.

7

I wonder whether “tumble” is an appropriate verb here. It has a base sense of “turn” or “spin”, as in “tumbler” (= acrobat), or “tumble-dryer”. Even in its sense “fall down” (e.g. “he tumbled down the stairs”), it has a sense of a turning or floppy or ungainly or uncoordinated fall.

A cupboard on the other hand is mostly rigid. The contents of a cupboard (e.g. piles of linen) might tumble out on top of you, if they had been stacked with insufficient care; but I’m not sure the components of a cupboard could “tumble”, after “giving way”.

Perhaps:

1- The wooden cupboard to/on his right gave way and fell on top of him.

MrP

8

Hi,

Surely the use of ‘tumble down’ here is intentionally graphic suggesting almost that the cupboard is animate.

Alan