Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[vinc1014]

Dear teachers:
Help me with the follwoing question:
There, Kaufmann took a good at two dead bodies. Kaufmann said that the dead bodies were not ________
(A) of humans, but of aliens.
(B) humans, but aliens.

Which is the correct or better answer? Are there any differences between these two? Thanks a lot. Vincent

[peterteacher]

B) is definitely correct.

If you say "of humans" the meaning is more "comes from humans".

A sentence using "of" would run something like this:

"The tools looked like they were of human origin, not alien."

This has the same meaning:

"The tools looked like they were of humans, not aliens."

... but the first example is more usual English.



Plus I think you missed out the word "look" from the original sentence.
It should be "Kaufmann took a good LOOK at the two dead bodies" right?
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[buddhaheart]

I would probably lose the preposition �of� and the �s�s� to turn "humans" and "aliens" into predicative adjectives. Hence ��, � were not human, but alien.�

[vinc1014]

Thanks a lot. I got it. Vincent