Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Chan-Seung Lee]

[redset]

Hey there

1) In short order means quickly. You might also hear of short order cooks, which are people who cook quick meals in cafes and small restaurants.

2) A snappy name is one that's usually short and interesting, one that sounds cool or even exciting. So a snappier name is one that's more snappy than another name. The text is saying that Blu-ray is snappier-named - it's named in a snappier way.

3+4) This sentence is slightly complex. We can paraphrase it slightly this way:

...at the hands of Blu-ray, the most commercially viable of the two, almost identical products.
It's describing Blu-ray, and pointing out that of the two almost identical products, it's the most commercially viable (the one which should sell more and make the most profit). The author doesn't actually know this for sure, but they point out that one can presume that it is:

...at the hands of Blu-ray, (one can presume) the most commercially viable of the two, almost identical products.

The parentheses are there to make it more readable, in this case the author of the text dropped them. So products is the subject, and the preceding part is the description. If you add an it in there, you're adding another subject.

[Chan-Seung Lee]

Redset!
Thanks for your great response.

To make sure of my understanding, let me ask you onething.
Can 'and one can presume more commercially viable of the two.' be changed to 'and one can presume it is more commercially viable of the two.' as the same meaning?

Thanks.