Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

The first sentence sounds much better than the
second one. You need to insert 'who' between
'people' and 'work', though.

1.  Both examples are defective because they
display two verbs without the pronoun WHO
to clarify the subordinate cause WHO WORK HARD.

2.  There is a difference between THE A GRADE
and AN A GRADE:  the difference is similar to
that indicated by the definite/indefinite article
elsewhere, e.g. A PERSON vs. THE PERSON.

2b.  A GRADE is an American usage that some
ESL readers may find less clear than GRADE OF A.
The sentence also requires that readers be familiar
with the American letter grading system (A,B,C,D,F)
which is not used in many countries.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)