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Dileepa Posted 7 years ago
Grammar

Meaning of "doing so"

I found the following sentence on http://www.bbcearth.com. What I cannot understand is the meaning of "doing so". The main reason for this is I feel that the following sentence might make the same sense with or without "doing so". Therefore, I would really appreciate it if someone could explain why they have added that phrase.

Almost every single person reading these words is doing so because of plastic.


Reference :-

https://www.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=turning-carbon-emissions-into-plastic

  

Top answer

dileepa Almost every single person reading these words is doing so because of plastic. The 'doing so' avoids the repetition that you would have in Almost every single person reading these words is reading these words because of plastic. Omission of the underlined words in either sentence would leave Almost every single person reading these words is because of plastic, which makes no sense .

  • dileepa Almost every single person reading these words is doing so because of plastic.
  • The 'doing so' avoids the repetition that you would have in Almost every single person reading these words is reading these words because of plastic.
  • Omission of the underlined words in either sentence would leave Almost every single person reading these words is because of plastic, which makes no sense .
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2 Answers
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dileepaAlmost every single person reading these words is doing so because of plastic.

The 'doing so' avoids the repetition that you would have in Almost every single person reading these words is reading these words because of plastic.

Omission of the underlined words in either sentence would leave Almost every single person re

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"Almost every single person (who is) reading these words" is a noun phrase that refers to a person. It does not make sense to say that a person is "because of plastic". It makes sense to say that a person is doing something because of plastic. "doing so" means behaving in the way previously mentioned, i.e. reading these words.

You may be imagining "is" in a different place in the

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