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Anonymous Posted 17 years ago
Grammar

Identical in form but different?

Hi. How can we tell if we are talking about one thing or two things when they are identical structually?

1) to the first and second generation
to the first and second generations
2) to the black and white dog
to the black and white dogs
  

Top answer

Hi, Often the context makes the meaning clear. If not, native speakers usually word their sentence in a way that avoids the ambiguity. Or, we can just say to the speaker, 'I don't understand.

— Clive

  • Hi, Often the context makes the meaning clear.
  • If not, native speakers usually word their sentence in a way that avoids the ambiguity.
  • Or, we can just say to the speaker, 'I don't understand.
  • ' Best wishes, Clive
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10 Answers
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Hi,
Often the context makes the meaning clear.
If not, native speakers usually word their sentence in a way that avoids the ambiguity.

Or, we can just say to the speaker, 'I don't understand. What do you mean?'

Best wishes, Clive
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Thank you. Please tell me what you would do to resolve possible ambiguity in this case. Could I say "The international and the national coverage"?

eg,

They usually had both good international and national coverage of the events. The international and national coverage they had for the latest one was especially inspiring.
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Hi,
'Coverage' is such a general word here that I don't see any ambiguity.

Clive
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AnonymousThey usually had both good international and national coverage of the events. The international and national coverage they had for the latest one was especially inspiring.
The only confusion I see surrounds the identity of "they."

We might say "The events were well covered by both the national and the international media." That is, the eve
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Hi. I think you can use the referent (Is that a referent?) "they" to a new paper in a general term.

The coverage they (i.e. the newpaper) had on this event was pretty impartial.

I think media sources do "provide" coverage of events but at the same time I think it is OK to write, "They usually had good coverage of the events.".
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Hi. Could your sentence be written like this? Notice there is no article before "international." Please nI forgot to ask this when I wrote the previous post.

Good coverage of the events was provided by both the national and international meda.

You wrote:

Ideally, "Good coverage of the events was provided by both the national and the international media."
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AnonymousHi. How can we tell if we are talking about one thing or two things when they are identical structually?

1) to the first and second generation
to the first and second generations
2) to the black and white dog
to the black and white dogs
The first one seems like a bad example. "To the first and second caller(s) we will give $10
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AnonymousI think it is OK to write, "They usually had good coverage of the events."
Right. It could be understood that the national and international newspapers [all] had / contained good coverage of the events. If it were a large venue like the Olympics, it might be understood that the Olympics had good national and international coverage of the ev
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Anonymous Good coverage of the events was provided by both the national and international meda.
Hi. I'm quite comfortable omitting the second article. That would probably be the more common way to phrase it.

I suspect I added it in my version because of the Latin plural. Many people speak as if "the media" were a singular noun, and I always get a
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Thank you for shedding light on my (question) problem. You seem to have answered my question.
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