Writing Tips
for clarity and concisenessArchive for subordinate conjunction
Conjunction Interruptus
This sentence has been twisting my mind around for days:
He’s likely to get as many if not more than she is.
As many as and more than are subordinating conjunctions that make comparisons. But in the sentence above, the writer truncated the first comparison by omitting the final essential word as:
To fix it, try this:
He’s likely to get as many as, if not more than, she is.
Another way to do this is to add the missing information and use only one subordinating conjunction:
He’s likely to get as many votes as she is, if not more.
Questions? Comments?
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
Tara’s Writing Studio
Comparison
Here’s a frustrated sentence to ponder:
The party on Saturday was smaller and very different from the party on Friday.
“Smaller” is a comparative adjective. In the sentence above, it is trying to compare Saturday’s party to Friday’s party–but it’s failing. The problem is that “than,” the subordinate conjunction that’s used after comparative adjectives, is missing.
When corrected, the sentence reads like this:
The party on Saturday was smaller than, and very different from, the party on Friday.
Notice that I used two commas to set off “and very different from.”
By the way, adjectives have three degrees of comparision: the positive {small}, the comparative {smaller), and the superlative {smallest}.
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
