Please help me with the following sentence.

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Nhi83

#517911 Fri, 23 May 08 03:05 PM

Is the sentence below understandable and grammatically correct? Thank you in advance for your help.

"The merchants asked if the City could use the City’s attorney to help them with applying for it. They don't have money to hire a private attorney work on it."

Nhi83

Joined on Mon, May 19 2008

New Member (30)

Mister Micawber

#517922 Fri, 23 May 08 03:17 PM

.
It is unclear partly because there is missing context, but:

The merchants asked the City if they could use the City’s attorney to help them apply for [the ??]. They don't have money to hire a private attorney to work on it.

Mister Micawber

Joined on Wed, Aug 4 2004

Yokohama

Veteran Member (22,604)

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'

Yankee

#517923 Fri, 23 May 08 03:17 PM

Nhi83
"The merchants asked if the City could use the City’s attorney to help them with applying for it. They don't have money to hire a private attorney work on it."

I'd suggest this:

"Since the merchants didn't/don't have money to hire a private attorney, asked the city if they could use the city’s attorney for help with the application."

Yankee

Joined on Sat, Apr 15 2006

Connecticut, USA

Senior Member (4,293)

Amy "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." - Mark Twain

RayH

#517925 Fri, 23 May 08 03:18 PM

"The merchants asked ~~if the City could use~~ the city’s attorney to help them ~~with~~ apply~~ing~~ for it. They don't have the money to hire a private attorney to work on it."

I'm not sure if "city attorney" should be capitalized or not but whichever it is the capitalization should apply to both words.

RayH

Joined on Sat, Mar 22 2008

CA, USA

Regular Member (796)

Native speaker of U. S. English. Not a grammar expert.