Jose Carillo's English Forum

English Grammar and Usage Problems => Badly Written, Badly Spoken => Topic started by: Miss Mae on February 15, 2016, 08:31:43 PM

Title: "This is a paid advertisement"
Post by: Miss Mae on February 15, 2016, 08:31:43 PM

Is the sentence "This is paid for _ " more appropriate than "This is a paid advertisement"?

I had overheard a radio station announced "This is a paid ad" after airing the political campaign of a certain politician.

Title: Re: "This is a paid advertisement"
Post by: Joe Carillo on February 25, 2016, 10:58:11 PM

All of the three statements you presented—“This is paid for advertisement,” “This is a paid advertisement,” and “This is a paid ad”—are acceptable sentence constructions, if rather slipshod. I think their comparative appropriateness is not at issue and need not be discussed here.

Those sentences are not very natural-sounding though. I’d say that the more idiomatic, concise, and effortless way of saying them in any kind of media—print, radio, television, the web—is “This is paid advertising.”

Title: Re: "This is a paid advertisement"
Post by: Miss Mae on February 26, 2016, 09:12:17 AM

I see.

I just really had felt uncomfortable upon seeing that disclosure after a political advertisement on TV some three weeks ago.

But why exactly, I couldn't be too sure. So I did not ask about it at once, still remembering the correction blunders I had committed here in the Forum last year.

My mind changed, though, when I saw the questionable disclaimer altered to the correction I have in mind a few days ago. But it did not occur to me that the sentence in the paid-by form is necessary! Oh, well...