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Anonymous Posted 16 years ago
Grammar
The sooner, the better type sentences
Hi,
A friend of mine asked me to translate a short summary of his article. It was not that tough despite many scientific expressions, but one sentence turned out to be a real puzzle. I will not quote that very sentence, since it's really long and complex, so let me use a more basic example.
I am familiar with using structures like "the faster you run, the better athlete you are". In my native Polish we can reverse the two clauses, because we use different words for each "the", so it is easy to identify the reason (the better I know you) and the result (the more I loke you). I'm pretty sure in English the order of the clauses is necessary to maintain the logic of the whole sentence, at least I have never tried to mess with that. But what if I have three "reasons"? Would a sentence "the faster you run, and the higher you jump, and the farther you throw, the better athlete you are" be OK? I think the ands are necessary to distinguish the reason from the result, but what about the commas? I will be grateful for any help.
Regards,
Karlos
A friend of mine asked me to translate a short summary of his article. It was not that tough despite many scientific expressions, but one sentence turned out to be a real puzzle. I will not quote that very sentence, since it's really long and complex, so let me use a more basic example.
I am familiar with using structures like "the faster you run, the better athlete you are". In my native Polish we can reverse the two clauses, because we use different words for each "the", so it is easy to identify the reason (the better I know you) and the result (the more I loke you). I'm pretty sure in English the order of the clauses is necessary to maintain the logic of the whole sentence, at least I have never tried to mess with that. But what if I have three "reasons"? Would a sentence "the faster you run, and the higher you jump, and the farther you throw, the better athlete you are" be OK? I think the ands are necessary to distinguish the reason from the result, but what about the commas? I will be grateful for any help.
Regards,
Karlos
Top answer
The order of the clauses determines the direction of cause and effect: "the faster you run, the better athlete you are" means that an increase in running speed will result in improvement in athletic prowess. "the better athlete you are, the faster you run" means that an improvement in athletic prowess will result in an increase in running speed. Multiple causes are possible.
- The order of the clauses determines the direction of cause and effect: "the faster you run, the better athlete you are" means that an increase in running speed will result in improvement in athletic prowess.
- "the better athlete you are, the faster you run" means that an improvement in athletic prowess will result in an increase in running speed.
- Multiple causes are possible.
- The punctuation and use of "and" in your example sentence seems reasonable to me.
- At least, I can't see a better way of doing it.
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1 Answers
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The order of the clauses determines the direction of cause and effect:
"the faster you run, the better athlete you are" means that an increase in running speed will result in improvement in athletic prowess.
"the better athlete you are, the faster you run" means that an improvement in athletic prowess will result in an increase in running speed.
Multiple causes are poss
"the faster you run, the better athlete you are" means that an increase in running speed will result in improvement in athletic prowess.
"the better athlete you are, the faster you run" means that an improvement in athletic prowess will result in an increase in running speed.
Multiple causes are poss
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