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SeroMack Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

Odd syntax?

Hi out there,

First, I'd like to thank you for your quick responses to my previous asks.
Today, I've come across some strange variation of a newspaper headline. It was: Obama Aides Tamp Down Expectations. What does it really mean? What happened with syntactic order or is there still any?
Sorry, but I was taught something different. SVO is not an ultimate rule but the sentence in bold above is a little bit of exaggeration for me. Is it "headline manner" or what? Help me, my English Friends Emotion: smile
Obama - noun
Aides - noun
Tamp Down - phr. verb

Hmm? 
  

Top answer

" And "expectations" of course is the object. So you do indeed have SVO.

  • " And "expectations" of course is the object.
  • So you do indeed have SVO.
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5 Answers
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Hi seroMack,

Here, "Obama" is being used an adjective to say "which aides."

Like "women writers" or even "shoe stores."

And "expectations" of course is the object. So you do indeed have SVO.
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 Sorry, I tripped. I asked a wrong question. You see... I read this article ---> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/politics/06expect.html?hp

... and according to that, it is Obama who tamps down. This made me confused.
I see your point, Grammar Geek, I knew about this howe
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It is a complicated sentence.
seroMack
President-elect Barack Obama -noun has begun an effort to tamp down - predicate what his aides fear are unusually high expectations among his supporters - object.
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 So, what his aides fear is a kind of interjection which can be omitted without the meaning of the sentence being changed? Is it the same as in non-defining relative clauses?

Thanks a lot for your help, Grammar Geek. 
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I don't think it's non-defining. It gives you information about those expectations. Maybe they are not high at all. Maybe they are high, but not unusually high. It's his aides who are afraid they are unusually high.

Let me give you a different example.

His car stereo was blasting what some would call the best kind of music.

Let's say it was rap, something I can barely br

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