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Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006Yes or No to Two Lttle Words
Although the sentence below sounds better to me with "it is" in it, I was wondering if i should leave these words out in the interest of conciseness. "The whale is not only as related to the dolphin as its anatomy clearly reveals it is, but it is also related to every other mammal." Thanks for your help. > Although the sentence below sounds better to me with "it is" in it, I > was wondering if i should leave these words out in the interest of [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Thanks for your help. Which "it is" are you talking about? The first one? Whatever, I think that the whole sentence is horrible, with or without "it is" (sorry!). I'd be tempted to rewrite it, maybe as something like: "The anatomy of the whale clearly shows it to be related not just to the dolphin, but to every other mammal too." In our last episode, <ha3mk2l8f2jq1shcne01mko807o43l1kb1@4ax.com>, the lovely and talented Larry Johnson broadcast on alt.usage.english: > Although the sentence below sounds better to me with "it is" in it, I > was wondering if i should leave these words out in the interest of > conciseness. > "The whale is not only as related to the dolphin as its anatomy > clearly reveals it is, but it is also related to every other mammal." > Thanks for your help. "The whale is not only related to the dolphin as its anatomy clearly reveals, but also to every other mammal."  SignatureLars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/> <http://myspace.com/larseighner> Every year back spring comes, with nasty little birds, yapping their fool heads off. --Dorothy Parker >In our last episode, ><ha3mk2l8f2jq1shcne01mko807o43l1kb1@4ax.com>, [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] >"The whale is not only related to the dolphin as its anatomy >clearly reveals, but also to every other mammal." I almost agree with that, but with one reservation. The original says "not only as related to the dolphin". Does "as related" indicate a close relationship? Perhaps no such implication is intended, in which case "as" should be removed. If a slightly modified version of the original is to be used the first "it is" should either be omitted or replaced by "it to be". "The whale is not only as related to the dolphin as its anatomy clearly reveals it to be, ..." SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) > Larry Johnson wrote > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > "The whale is not only related to the dolphin as its anatomy > clearly reveals, but also to every other mammal." Gasp! I'm having a comma fit here. Right between "dolphin" and "as". Gotta be there. How about this one: "The whale is related not only to the dolphin, as its anatomy clearly reveals, but also to every other mammal." ? I was also having a delayed vertiginous response to syntactical disorder and misorder as well as to a bad border. SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan. Unmunged email: /at/easypeasy.com "Impatience is the mother of misery." > In our last episode, > <ha3mk2l8f2jq1shcne01mko807o43l1kb1@4ax.com>, [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > "The whale is not only related to the dolphin as its anatomy > clearly reveals, but also to every other mammal." My beef with the sentence is on a semantic level: the fact that a mammal such as a whale is related to every other mammal is trivial, and need not be stated. "The anatomy of the whale clearly reveals that it is related to the dolphin." The Peacenik entity posted thusly: >> In our last episode, >> <ha3mk2l8f2jq1shcne01mko807o43l1kb1@4ax.com>, [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] >"The anatomy of the whale clearly reveals that it is related to the >dolphin." Up until the phrase "related to every other mammal", there is nothing in evidence to indicate that either the whale or the dolphin is a mammal. Semantically, the sentence makes perfect sense, absent some preceding sentence establishing the mammality of the whale. Thanks very much for all the opinions. i'm wondering if any of them would have been different if i had put have the sentence in the following context. "People originally believed that the whate was a fish whose anatomy was unrelated to that of the dolphin or mammals.. However, the whale is not only as related to to the dolphin as its anatomy clearly reveals it is, but it is also related to every other mammal." Thanks for reconsidering this for me in its context. >The Peacenik entity posted thusly: > [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] >mammal. Semantically, the sentence makes perfect sense, absent some >preceding sentence establishing the mammality of the whale. > Thanks very much for all the opinions. i'm wondering if any of them > would have been different if i had put have the sentence in the [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Thanks for reconsidering this for me in its context. [...] I would change "as related" to "closely related" and put a comma between "dolphin" and the remaining "as". > Thanks very much for all the opinions. [I]'m wondering if any of > them would have been different if [I] had put have the sentence [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Thanks for reconsidering this for me in its context. Yes. There's no need to change this sentence at all. And, yes, the second "it is" is necessary given the writer's sytlistic choice. It is certainly possible to rewrite the sentence without the second "it is", but that changes things slightly -- probably insignificantly -- and is merely a question of style. epeating the "it is" in the final clause emphasizes its content because it is not a simple conjunct but a complete sentence with its own statement of fact. This instance of the sentence clearly demonstrates the need for context when asking for and making usage and grammatical judgments. I thank you for providing the context. It changes everything, afaic. And while CDB's suggestion to "change 'as related' to 'closely related' and put a comma between 'dolphin' and the remaining 'as'" doesn't change the meaning, it does change the style significantly enough to make the way CDB would write it either more or less acceptable to a reader who has been given two options. I won't make any judgment about which is better -- they are both perfectly acceptable to me -- but I will say that I have a definite preference. SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan. Unmunged email: /at/easypeasy.com "Impatience is the mother of misery." >> Thanks very much for all the opinions. [I]'m wondering if any of >> them would have been different if [I] had put have the sentence [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >> its anatomy clearly reveals it is, but it is also related to >> every other mammal." [...] > And while CDB's suggestion to "change 'as related' to 'closely > related' and put a comma between 'dolphin' and the remaining 'as'" [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > acceptable to me -- but I will say that I have a definite > preference. Whatever the relative merits of the two versions, CDB's version would have been better if he'd remembered to remove the word "but" from it. Argh. |
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