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Castellano Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

Omission of the Same Second verb (in a Verb Clause) in a Sentence

Hello everyone,

I'm a native English speaker and was wondering whether I could do the following. If there is a technical term for this procedure or process, could someone also please tell me what it is?

Thank you.

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Suppose I have the following sentence.

"John likes apples and Mary likes oranges" (Sentence 1)

Is it grammatically correct to omit the second "like" to simplify to the following?

"John likes apples and Mary oranges" (Sentence 2)

I know that there are other ways to rewrite my original sentence, but I'm just curious about this.

Thank you again!
  

Top answer

Hi I would say that is fine and is called ellipsis. It just means that you miss out a word if the person you are speaking to will understand what you mean. It does depend on your audience and how much emphasis you want to put on the words..

— Dave_anon

  • Hi I would say that is fine and is called ellipsis.
  • It just means that you miss out a word if the person you are speaking to will understand what you mean.
  • It does depend on your audience and how much emphasis you want to put on the words..
  • - I like pasta but my girlfriend likes pizza.
  • - I like pasta, my girlfriend pizza.
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2 Answers
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Hi

I would say that is fine and is called ellipsis. It just means that you miss out a word if the person you are speaking to will understand what you mean. It does depend on your audience and how much emphasis you want to put on the words..

- I like pasta but my girlfriend likes pizza.

- I like pasta, my girlfriend pizza.

- I'm going home, he's not.

T
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Hi Dave,

Thanks for your answer.

Jim
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