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yakey
Joined: 21 Apr 2003
Location: Korea
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 Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 4:31 pm Post subject: Sentence question |
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I'm editing a document for my job and I have a sentence that's bugging me to no end. Here it is:
Understand the method of calculating the circumference and the area of a circle, and calculate them.
Does "them" sound right to you?
A part of me wants to change it to "it."
Any help out there?
Last edited by yakey on Sun Apr 22, 2007 5:15 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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faster
Joined: 03 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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| "them" is correct - if it were "it," it would be ambiguous (which should be calculated?) |
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icicle
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
Location: Gyeonggi do Korea
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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The question asks the students to calcuate two things - area and circumfrence so it must be "them". If it asked them to calcuate one thing then it would be "it"
icicle |
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mnhnhyouh
Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Location: The Middle Kingdom
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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It is a fat ugly sentence though.
Can you add the rest of the paragraph to provide more context?
h |
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faster
Joined: 03 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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| icicle wrote: |
The question asks the students to calcuate two things - area and circumfrence so it must be "them". If it asked them to calcuate one thing then it would be "it"
icicle |
No - if it asked them to calculate one thing, it would have to specify which thing to avoid pronoun ambiguity. |
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tomato
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 5:17 pm Post subject: Re: Sentence question |
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"Them" doesn't sound right because we seldom use plural nouns and pronouns for anything which is not concrete.
Anyway, "understand" is not a very good behavioral objective.
Why don't you just evade the whole problem by writing "Calculate the circumference and the area of a circle"? |
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yakey
Joined: 21 Apr 2003
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 5:21 pm Post subject: Thanks |
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| Thanks for your help to everyone who replied. |
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