Which one is preferable

Dear Jeff_999,

It is B. The occurrence in «sparsely populated regions» is counter-intuitive.

«Portentous» would be nonsense.

axiomatic = self-evident

'Paradoxical' might relate if the statement were written, "It is a paradox that serious automobile accidents are more likely to occur in sparsely populated areas.'

Thank you two so much for replying.


But I don’t think “portentous” would be nonsense. For example, more excellent teachers here would portend/foretell the forum is going to be more helpful for us; similarly, more residents in an area portend the area is going to have a greater risk of serious automobile accidents.
But since modified terms is “that there would be a greater

Hi,

Unfortunately portentous does not relate to portend in the way that you think.

You have the meaning of portend correctly, but portentous means 'important, significant, crucial, ominous, threatening' so it does not fit here.

Really? But I just looked up the dictionary. Portentous also means "of the nature of or constituting a portent; foreboding." For example, the present aspect of society is portentous of Great change (Edward Bellamy).

Here's what I found for "portentous":

1. [adj] http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/puffed http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/up

Hello Jeff

I think the problem here is the 'would'. Here are the two idioms:

1. X is/seems portentous of Y

This means that Y will/may follow X.

2. It is/seems portentous that X has happened.

This means that something (unspecified as yet) will/may follow X.

'Portentous' therefore requires an event which looks forward to another event. But if we

Thank you, MrP. I had that hunch, sinceit refers to the whole clause "that there would be a greater risk of serious automobi