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Taka Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

Who

We exchange greetings with people who we know, but not very well.

If the sentence above were this instead, would it sound wrong? Wouldn't it make sense? Or is it just that it's not wrong but a bit redundant?

We exchange greetings with people who we know but who we don't know very well.
  

Top answer

Taka We exchange greetings with people who we know, but not very well. Yikes! I see this as problematic.

— CalifJim

  • Taka We exchange greetings with people who we know, but not very well.
  • Yikes!
  • I see this as problematic.
  • At first I thought it meant We don't exchange greetings very well with people we know.
  • For the meaning you're looking for, I'd say, We exchange greetings with people we don't know very well.
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9 Answers
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TakaWe exchange greetings with people who we know, but not very well.
Yikes! I see this as problematic. At first I thought it meant

We don't exchange greetings very well with people we know.

For the meaning you're looking for, I'd say,

We exchange greetings with people we don't know very well.

People we do
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CalifJimGrammar aside, I believe we exchange greetings both with people we know well and with people we don't know well, but I'm well aware that we are not debating the truth of the sentence here.
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Jim, do you think these are the same?

We exchange greetings many times with people we don't know very well.
We exchange greetings many times with acquaintances.
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TakaJim, do you think these are the same?We exchange greetings many times with people we don't know very well.We exchange greetings many times with acquaintances.
No! I don't know the cashier that checks me out at the supermarket. She is not an acquaintance of mine.

So "a person I don't know very well" and "one of my acquaintances" are two completel
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So even 'casual acquaintance' is different from 'people we don't know very well'?
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TakaSo even 'casual acquaintance' is different from 'people we don't know very well'?
I believe so. It's different for me. To me the category "people we don't know very well" is a bigger category. It includes people I may come into contact with from day to day (like shop workers and the mail man) and people I know (but not well) socially from having
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I see.

Thanks, Jim!
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TakaWe exchange greetings many times with people we don't know very well.We exchange greetings many times with acquaintances.
I think what you want here is "We often exchange greetings . . . "

"We exchange greetings many times" sounds (to me) as if you exchange greetings over and over again on each occasion.
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That's right. Thanks, khoff!
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