Path: news.nzbot.com!not-for-mail
From: Einde O'Callaghan <eindeoc@freenet.de>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: a weird sentence
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:25:40 +0200
Lines: 53
Message-ID: <7er8aaF2h4qdcU1@mid.individual.net>
References: <h68o2b$tnd$1@news.albasani.net> <7eqc5sF2gs2q0U1@mid.individual.net> <3vfg85lh64fibbndtdmlqb3ig1i4f2l9f6@4ax.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Trace: individual.net izbNCDuk1ASJfh4E2iQHxQGS0IGnQkiJrLFCdzIOIKGZeZ6Tw=
Cancel-Lock: sha1:5RWOcToWYs11PFocQxpRHX0i0hY=
User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 (Windows/20090605)
In-Reply-To: <3vfg85lh64fibbndtdmlqb3ig1i4f2l9f6@4ax.com>
Xref: news.nzbot.com alt.languages.english:1645
Bob Cunningham wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Aug 2009 14:25:27 +0200, Einde O'Callaghan
> <eindeoc@freenet.de> wrote:
>
>> sky blue wrote:
>>> Q: When a bookstore sells a textbook on credit is its earnings process
>>> complete?
>>>
>>>
>>> Can anyone tell me what this question is asking?
>>> The structure of this sentence looks weird to me; I can't make any sense
>>> out of it
>>> especially when I see the way the answer is given.
>>>
>>> The answer to that question is:
>>> A: The bookstore can record sales for these books minus an amount
>>> expected for returns.
>>>
>>> This seems like a weird way to answer a "WHEN" question, without
>>> answering "when".
>> This isn't a "when question - when introduces a subordinate time clause.
>> The sentence can be reformulated: "Is a bookstore's earnings process
>> complete when it sells a textbook on credit?"
>>
>> So it's actually a "Yes/No" style question.
>
> That's true, of course, but the sentence can be construed to be
> ambiguous. The "when" can be taken to mean "while", so the sentence
> as written can convey the question "Is a bookstore's earnings process
> complete during the time that it is selling a textbook on credit?"
>
> The apparently intended question can be conveyed less ambiguously by
> writing "Is a bookstore's earnings process complete after it has sold
> a textbook on credit?"
>
> Come to think of it, the "when" can be retained while the ambiguity is
> removed by changing the tense of "sell": "Is a bookstore's earnings
> process complete when it has sold a textbook on credit?"
I think the use of the present simple in the original instead of the
present continuous in your example makes the question less ambiguous,
however I would agree that there is some potential ambiguity.
The main purpose of my post was to correct the misapprehension of teh OP
who seemed to think it was a "When?" question, so I didn't comment on
any other aspect. I suspect the question comes from some sort of
textbook or similar text. Unfortunately many writers of textbooks may be
experts in their fields but they haven't always got any particular
talent as wirters and write prose that is full of ambiguities and in
some cases even inc0omprehensible without doing major reconstruction
work on some of their sentences.
Einde O'Callaghan
|
|