Attend = take part in = participate?

[Stevenloan]

1. How often does Susan's neigborhood hold neighborhood meetings? Does she usually attend?
2. How often does Susan's neck of the woods hold neighborhood meetings? Does she usually take part in/participate?

- Do these sentences sound ok to your native ears? :)

Thanks a million!

StevenLoan

[dante]

To my non-native ears Steven, any of the options from the title will do . But the opening sentences in both 1 and 2 are a real nightmare Steven :)

You don't use the simple present to say how long something has lasted, which was your intention in both sentences I guess:

You might say:

1. How long has Susan's neighborhood been holding (or did hold) its regular meetings? Does she usually atend?

It doesn't sound natural to me to say that "neck of woods" does anything, and I may be wrong about it.

[Edwin F Ashworth]

You've changed the meaning there, Dante.

Steven, your verb choices are fine (except that take part in needs a completer - take part in them. Participate, take part, and attend may be used intransitively; note that take part (and especially take an active part) points to more than mere attendance.)

Dante is right in hinting that the idiom neck of the woods usually only occurs in the expression in X's neck of the woods (and usually with a possessive pronoun for X's); it is used outside the prepositional phrase, but still only as a locality, not the inhabitants / denizens dwelling or meeting there.

Even using X's neighbourhood to represent the local community sounds a little irregular to me - Tod's neighbourhood is peaceful is fine, but connotes the location as well as its inhabitants.
The proximity of the two neighbourhood's in your first example, addressed by Dante, sounds rather clumsy.

May I suggest:

How often are community meetings held in Susan's neigborhood?
Does she usually attend?

[dante]

You're right Edwin but I think that it was "long" in Steven's original post, not "often". Anyway, if it was my mistake it wasn't intentional.

[Edwin F Ashworth]

Apologies, Dante.

I've just realised how easy it is to set someone up by changing an initial posting after a response. After a response of "The Government is in total agreement", just think what deleting a certain three-letter word in an initial posting of "We must not invade Poland" would suggest.

[Stevenloan]

Dear Dante and Edwin F Ashworth!

- I apologize for causing this misunderstanding. It was "long" in my original post not "often". I corrected it because I thought it didn't make much sense :)

StevenLoan

[dante]

It's alright Edwin and Steven.