omission + by far

Question

Some time ago, needled by a remark from an old friend that “it would be nice if you could write more than three lines in your e-mails,” I sat down at the computer and tapped out a couple of thousand words of news and thoughts and anecdotes. When I pressed the Send button, however, there was no connection, so I printed out the e-mail, stuffed it in an envelope and sent it off. So delighted was my friend when this fat little package plopped onto her doormat that she sat down to write a proper letter in reply. In two days I received her reply. Superior by far to my superficial, dashed-off e-mail, this was a considered, beautifully expressed account of where she was in her life — relationships, self, friends, partner, family, ambition. But for my computer connection failure, it might never be written.

Q)(What element(s) is thought be be omited or) What can be the options of omission in front of the underlined sentence?

Q2) Can "by far" in that sentence be placed in front of "superior" just like other adverbs can be?

GPY · Accepted Answer

1) There is nothing omitted. You can think of it as an inverted form of "This was a considered, beautifully expressed account of where she was in her life, superior by far to my superficial, dashed-off e-mail."

2) In that case would drop the "by", i.e. say "Far superior to my ...".

Moon7296 · Answer

GPY2) In that case would drop the "by", i.e. say "Far superior to my ...".

Ah.. I was wondering why "by" is omitted in that case when "by far" is considered one chunk of phrasing.

omission + by far

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