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Anonymous Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

G8 Summit

There's nothing quite like a nineteen course banquet to set oneself up for an afternoon's debate on how to tackle world hunger. Apparently, per capita, one of the courses was so expensive that its cost would have been enough to provide the average african family with food for a year.

How could I improve this?
  

Top answer

The first sentence seems absolutely fine to me. A couple of quibbles about the second: It seems that "per capita" ought to qualify the word "cost", but the grammatical construction does not seem to quite achieve this. It's debatable whether a cost can provide a family with food for a year.

— Mr Wordy

  • The first sentence seems absolutely fine to me.
  • A couple of quibbles about the second: It seems that "per capita" ought to qualify the word "cost", but the grammatical construction does not seem to quite achieve this.
  • It's debatable whether a cost can provide a family with food for a year.
  • Oh, and "african" should be "African".
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4 Answers
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The first sentence seems absolutely fine to me. A couple of quibbles about the second:

It seems that "per capita" ought to qualify the word "cost", but the grammatical construction does not seem to quite achieve this.

It's debatable whether a cost can provide a family with food for a year.

Oh, and "african" should be "African".
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>It's debatable whether a cost can provide a family with food for a year.
Fully agree with Mr. Wordy
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OK, so how would you word the second sentence exactly?
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I suppose you could say:

Apparently, one of the courses was so expensive that the money spent per head would have been enough to provide the average African family with food for a year.
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