The phrase "a small tear in" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a minor rip or damage in an object, often referring to fabric, paper, or other materials.
Example: "I noticed a small tear in my favorite shirt after washing it."
Alternatives: "a minor rip in" or "a little hole in".
But Balanchine offers something else for the Glazunov score: a story about dancing, in which any expectations of narrative are swept aside by the choreographic architecture; so much so that when a dancer bobbled her footing in the final passage, it felt not as if an individual ballerina had lost her balance, but like a small tear in endlessly unspooling fabric.
"Sitting here picturing home with a small tear in my eyes," he wrote.
"Except for a small tear in the middle, this page was intact.
He had a setback during rehabilitation when he sustained a "small tear" in his right hamstring.
The latest scan, on Thursday, detected a "small tear" in his hamstring tendon.
"I had to look twice until I finally spotted a small tear in the pavement," he notes.
A series of nagging injuries, including a small tear in her Achilles' tendon, limited her ability to train.
Dr. Don Baxter performed the operation in Houston, removing scar tissue and repairing a small tear in Buhner's left foot.
Posada has not started at catcher since April 8 because of a small tear in the subscapularis muscle in his right shoulder.
In the Tom Perrotta tale, by way of Damon Lindeloff, 2% of the world's population simply vanishes one day, a relatively small tear in the actual demographic but a gaping hole in the consciousness of those left behind.
In the Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics at King's College in London, Dr Claudia Linker is at her computer looking at a video made through a microscope of a small tear made in the tail of a zebrafish.
