Loving slap

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

[b]Please correct and identify the problem

His father gave him a loving slap on his face.

Problem: collocation

correction: ______ slap: (Please adjective here)

  1. Everyday he likes to go footing after work.

Problem: _______
Correction: Everyday he like to go walking or for a walk after walk.[/b]

2

I don’t find a problem with the collocation, however I find a problem with “his face”. I think it should be “the face”.

I think it should read:

Everyday he likes to go for a walk after work.
Everyday he likes to go walking after work.

3

Hi,
For #1, I guess ‘love slap’ is the correct collocation.

Justin

4

In my opinion “loving slap” is not categorically impossible but sounds odd. “love slap” also sounds strange. There is no single obvious correct answer. “playful slap” would work. I agree that “on the face” is more natural.

These are OK except that “Everyday” should be “Every day”. The original sentence was wrong in this respect too. Again, there is no obvious single correct answer. It is not even very obvious to me that “footing” is supposed to suggest “walking”.

5

Ho Dozy,

I just found this: urbandictionary.com/define.p … ove%20slap

Maybe it’s AmE, I don’t know…

Justin

6

I hope you do know what Johnny is :)))
That definition is filthy language, not appropriate for the context of the sentence.

Also, UrbanDictionary can be edited by anyone, and judging by the number of thumb-ups/downs this definition is very unpopular.

If you’re interested in AmE, use American Usage corpora, like this one: corpus.byu.edu/coca/
Which doesn’t turn up any sentences with either “love slap” or “loving slap”.

7

Hi OTS,

Actually I have been led to Urban Dictionary by Google for many times. Little did I know how the content in the site was built up.
Thank you for the information and directing me to COCA. Its user interface is a little bit more complicated, but I’ll definitely give it a try.

Justin

8

Right, Urban Dictionary can sometimes be useful for slang terms that are too new or too obscure to be listed in regular dictionaries, but it needs to be treated with great caution as there is no proper editorial control and it contains a lot of garbage and made-up nonsense. It definitely should not be used as a regular dictionary.