I am mortally surprised.
How does this line sound to you? Is it OK to say so? Please help.
Hi Daemon
That sounds awkward to my ear. ‘Mortally’ is used in a few extremely typical collocations, so maybe that’s the only reason that ‘mortally surprised’ sounds odd to me.
These would sound very typical to me:
- mortally afraid
- mortally wounded
.
Hi, Amy
Does it sound “poetic” to you ?
I know that poets resort to weird collocations to make special effects, but at the same time some weird collocations are just plain mistakes by non-native speakers. So which is it?