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SuperESL Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

Neglectful of

"Thatcher was also thoroughly neglectful of the scope for her economic reforms to unbalance the British economy."

Hi,

I came across this sentence while reading online. Is it completely sound grammatically? Is "sb is neglectful of sth to [verb]" a valid structure? 

I understand what the author is trying to say: that Thatcher was so careless about setting the limits of her reforms (i.e. she was too indiscriminate) that they ended up unbalancing the UK economy. It's just that I have never seen the phrase 'neglectful of' used in this way - with a "to" tagged on towards the end to indicate the result of the said negligence.

Thank you.
  

Top answer

You are misinterpreting the sentence. Her economic reforms had the scope to unbalance the British economy. She was neglectful of this scope.

— Clive

  • You are misinterpreting the sentence.
  • Her economic reforms had the scope to unbalance the British economy.
  • She was neglectful of this scope.
  • ie Thatcher was also thoroughly neglectful of ( the scope for her economic reforms to unbalance the British economy ) .
  • The sentence tells us nothing about whether this unbalancing actually happened.
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3 Answers
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You are misinterpreting the sentence.

Her economic reforms had the scope to unbalance the British economy.
She was neglectful of this scope.

ie
Thatcher was also thoroughly neglectful of (
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I see. I thought I understood it, but in fact I did not.
Thank you
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SuperESLI came across this sentence while reading online. Is it completely sound grammatically?
Yes, but I had to read it three times. "Scope for" threw me for a loop the first two passes. I smell a US/UK difference.
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