Here’s an interesting question about elliptical sentence construction e-mailed to the Forum by reader Jhumur Dasgupta:
“Is the sentence below from a news agency correct?
“‘Egypt’s official news agency says the interim government has deemed Al-Jazeera’s local affiliate a national threat, moving closer to banning its broadcasts.’
“If I am not wrong, the verb phrase ‘moving closer to banning its broadcasts’ does not refer to the appropriate subject.”
My reply to Jhumur:Surprising as it may seem, that admittedly confusing sentence construction from Associated Press is acceptable by modern journalistic standards. It’s a doubly ellipted version of this compound-complex sentence: “Egypt’s official news agency says that the interim government has deemed Al-Jazeera’s local affiliate a national threat and that it is moving closer to banning its broadcasts.”
In that unellipted form, it’s very clear that the doer of the action “moving closer to banning its broadcasts” is “the interim government,” the same doer that “has deemed Al-Jazeera’s local affiliate a national threat.”
For brevity and ease of articulation, however, the sentence was ellipted by dropping the relative pronoun “that” each time. Some news agencies typically resort to this journalistic shorthand and expect readers to just supply the missing “that” mentally.
When there’s only one action and one doer of the action, this type of ellipsis can work rather nicely, streamlining and making the sentence more succinct. This, for instance, is what happens when the second action, “moving closer to banning its broadcasts,” is dropped from the original sentence: “Egypt’s official news agency says the interim government has deemed Al-Jazeera’s local affiliate a national threat.” We won’t even notice the missing “that.”
ELLIPTING SENTENCES WORKS FINE WHEN DONE RIGHT BUT OBSCURES SENSE WHEN OVERDONE
(Recall that
elliptical sentences consist of two independent clauses, one containing the grammar elements the other has left out. The independent clause with the missing elements is the
elliptical clause—an abbreviated adverb clause stripped of its subject and verb. When done sensibly,
ellipsis can gracefully knock off repetitive words and phrases from a sentence, making it easier to read.)
The problem though is that some news reporters and editors just don’t seem to know when not to do ellipses any further, and I daresay that the Associated Press overdid it in this case and obfuscated the meaning of the sentence. Indeed, in that doubly ellipted sentence, it’s no longer clear what actor is “moving closer to banning its broadcasts,” making this phrase virtually a dangling modifier to readers not wise to the ways of ellipsis-prone journalists.
***
Another interesting question, this time from a member of Jose Carillo’s English Forum, Mwita Chacha:
“This sentence I saw in an online U.S. newspaper’s commentary puzzled me: ‘I chose this dress because it’s different than the traditional wedding gown you see at every wedding.’
“It could be perplexing to those who know the word ‘than’ as a conjunction used after a comparative adjective or adverb to introduce the second element or clause of an unequal comparison, as in ‘Maria is taller than her sister,’ ‘He paints more beautifully than his friend,’ and ‘Their neighborhood is more dangerous to walk at nights than ours’.”
My reply to Mwita Chacha:I’ve grown so accustomed to using “different from” instead of “different than” in the sentence you presented that I don’t think I’ll ever gravitate to using “different than” no matter what the grammatical situation might be. Having said that, I must acknowledge for the record that this is simply a personal choice—my personal idiom, so to speak.
IMAGE CREDIT: BLOG.OXFORDDICTIONARIES.COMWHICH IS CORRECT: "DIFFERENT FROM," "DIFFERENT THAN", OR "DIFFERENT TO"?
Most grammar authorities in both American English and British English maintain that there’s nothing wrong with using “different than”—and even “different to”—in such sentence constructions. Indeed, alongside “different from,” both “different than” and “different to” have been used by well-known writers since the 17th century to convey precisely the same sense.
So my advice is: just take your pick and stick to it.
This essay first appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the September 20, 2013 issue of The Manila Times
, © 2013 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
