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Paco2004 Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

"Life that is"

Hello guys

I'm in trouble with a sentence in [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/01/AR2006050101272.html]Washington Post's article "A Passage to Harvard"[/url].

The sentence is :
"Life that is, in this case, more engaging, more nuanced and ultimately more disturbing than art."
How should I interpret this "life that is"? Is the "that" a relative? Or should I interpret the phrase is made by fronting "life" in "that is life"? I would to like hear your opinions.

paco
  

Top answer

Life which is more engaging, more nuanced, etc

— Marius Hancu

  • Life which is more engaging, more nuanced, etc
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6 Answers
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Life which is more engaging, more nuanced, etc
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Marius HancuLife which is more engaging, more nuanced, etc
Hi, Marius

Thanks for the quick reply. Do you mean this sentence is made up of only a single noun modified by a clause?

paco
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...weeping inconsolably and trying to look at life ahead.

Life that is, in this case, more engaging, more nuanced and ultimately more disturbing than art. And Viswanathan, perhaps, has learned a lesson that the admissions industrial complex does its best to obscure: There are more things to cry about than not getting into Harvard.

I would read "Life" as a restatement
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MrPedanticI would read "Life" as a restatement of the preceding "life", and "that" as a defining relative pronoun:

"...weeping inconsolably and trying to look at life ahead – life that is more engaging, more nuanced and ultimately more disturbing than art, in this case."Hello MrP

Thank you for the opinion. So I feel the writing style here is of abnormal
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Well, it does seem to be a fairly common trick, in some kinds of journalism: putting your relative pronoun in one paragraph, and its referent in another.

MrP
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MrPedanticWell, it does seem to be a fairly common trick, in some kinds of journalism: putting your relative pronoun in one paragraph, and its referent in another.

MrP
Thank you, again! I see.

paco
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