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Francesca Posted 19 years ago
Grammar

To witness

0Hello everybody,02br
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00I was wondering if the verb 'to witness' is the right choice in this sentence:02br
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01font00In the next years we witnessed a sudden regression of both the mixed meadows02font02br
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00In other words I meant to say that we saw the regression of the meadows with our own eyes. 02br
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00I don't know if 'to witness' is good for a scientific context, though, does any better verb exist? 05002br
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00Thank you very much in advance! 051010id3711id1
  

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10 Answers
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0Hi Fran,02br
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00We observed?0-
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0Hi Francesca,02br
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00I01font00 was wondering if the verb 'to witness' is the right choice in this sentence:02font02br
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01font01b00In the next years we witnessed a sudden regression of both the mixed meadows02b02font02br
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01font
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0Yes, 'observe' sounds good too, thank you both! 05002br
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00Clive, you're right, sorry 05100, that is about seagrass: a 'mixed meadow' is a meadow composed by more than one species of seagrass, and 'the regression of it' is its slowly disappearence from the coastline to offshore. Do you still think that 'witness' could work now? 052010id111id1012i
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0 I am very partial to 01i00witness02i00 there. I think it sounds classy. I like it.02br
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00 The end of the sentence contains a slight glitch, however.02br
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00 On first reading I wanted it to go on -- because of the way we use 01i00both02i00.02br
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01i00... regression o
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0Thanks for your help Jim 05002br
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00Anyway I'm not sure if I get it right, so I could tell you what I wrote in the previous sentence to explain better which are the 2 things that 'both' is referring to:02br
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00(they are the sentences that I have 2 say in 2 different power point slides. This was just to explain why I repeated mixed meadows twice
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0 Hi Francesca02br
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00I'd say either "01font00both of the mixed meadows" 02font00or01font00 02font00"01font00both mixed meadows02font00". 050010id1
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0 I'd keep the caption on the first slide just as you have it (in red).02br
00 For the second slide, I'd say.02br
01i00In the following years we witnessed a sudden regression of both of the mixed meadows.02i02br
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00 (01i00In the next years02i00 is also OK, of course.)02br
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00My concern
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0Thank you very much Jim, now I get it 05001blockquote
01cite10CalifJim12cite10My concern is that the Power Point presentations I am familiar with usually have only short phrases, not complete sentences, and you have written quite long sentences. Is that the usual style for presentations in your field of study?12br
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10Yes, s
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0Fran, don't worry! It's ALWAYS hard to write briefly. There is a famous line that says "Sorry to write you such a long letter but I didn't have time to write a shorter one."02br
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00One of my biggest challenges in my profession is creating one-paragraph summaries of complex projects - it's so much easier to write three or four! Writing PowerPoint slides, in which you have
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0Thanks for your help Barb 05000 I'm just revising my presentation right now, maybe I will send you some.01blockquote
01cite10Grammar Geek12cite10"Sorry to write you such a long letter but I didn't have time to write a shorter one."12br
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10That is funny 051010id111id2
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