This question was closed without grading. Reason: Other
Nov 29, 2011 16:19
12 yrs ago
English term
no more death tolls
English
Other
Government / Politics
Political essay
Hello everybody,
I'm proofreading the Acknowledgements page of an essay. The author is an Italian native speaker.
Do you think the following sentence is correct? The first part sounds very Italian to me:
We hope that “no more death tolls” does not remain wishful thinking and an unlikely thought, but instead becomes reality in the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area.
Thank you for your help.
Gabriella
I'm proofreading the Acknowledgements page of an essay. The author is an Italian native speaker.
Do you think the following sentence is correct? The first part sounds very Italian to me:
We hope that “no more death tolls” does not remain wishful thinking and an unlikely thought, but instead becomes reality in the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area.
Thank you for your help.
Gabriella
Responses
21 mins
Eliminate redundancy to make it more English
Seems to me you understand "no more death tolls" so I won't address that...(other than to say there is nothing wrong with it really).
The sentence as a whole doesn't sound quite right because it has a redundant element "...and an unlikely thought" which has already been stated with "wishful thinking" - a very neat and concise English collocation.
If you want the sentence to sound more English, just eliminate the redundancy:
"We hope that “no more death tolls” does not remain wishful thinking, but instead becomes reality in the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area."
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Note added at 22 mins (2011-11-29 16:42:10 GMT)
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- English as a language, is not very fond of repetition of redundancy, so I think this is the root of the problem.
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Note added at 22 mins (2011-11-29 16:42:26 GMT)
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Typo: of = or
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Note added at 23 mins (2011-11-29 16:43:03 GMT)
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repetition OR redundancy
The sentence as a whole doesn't sound quite right because it has a redundant element "...and an unlikely thought" which has already been stated with "wishful thinking" - a very neat and concise English collocation.
If you want the sentence to sound more English, just eliminate the redundancy:
"We hope that “no more death tolls” does not remain wishful thinking, but instead becomes reality in the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area."
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 22 mins (2011-11-29 16:42:10 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
- English as a language, is not very fond of repetition of redundancy, so I think this is the root of the problem.
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 22 mins (2011-11-29 16:42:26 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Typo: of = or
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 23 mins (2011-11-29 16:43:03 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
repetition OR redundancy
+1
8 mins
is not merely wishful thinking
The sentence is certainly awkward English with 2 phrases that stick out in my reading.
The more usual English phrases would be:
is not merely wishful thinking
and
and an unlikely idea
or an idea that will never come to fruition
or something like that.
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Note added at 35 mins (2011-11-29 16:55:19 GMT)
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We hope that “no more death tolls” becomes reality in the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area and does not remain wishful thinking.
I agree with Ty that you could remove the restatement of "unlikely idea," unless the author wants the same sort of thing said twice for great emphasis. I think it would also be more natural in English to be more direct, thus my suggested change in the sentence structure.
The more usual English phrases would be:
is not merely wishful thinking
and
and an unlikely idea
or an idea that will never come to fruition
or something like that.
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 35 mins (2011-11-29 16:55:19 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
We hope that “no more death tolls” becomes reality in the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area and does not remain wishful thinking.
I agree with Ty that you could remove the restatement of "unlikely idea," unless the author wants the same sort of thing said twice for great emphasis. I think it would also be more natural in English to be more direct, thus my suggested change in the sentence structure.
Peer comment(s):
agree |
British Diana
: Yes, without the redundancy and using "troubled" instead of controversial
14 hrs
|
Thanks Diana !
|
+2
40 mins
We hope that an end to high death tolls will go beyond wishful thinking*
to become a reality... (in the "fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area" frankly sounds dreadful, I would lobby with the author to adjust this, at least in terms of syntaxis). Since death always takes its toll, even when one person dies, I have added "high" to give the phrase a bit more sense.
Peer comment(s):
agree |
Tina Vonhof (X)
: Especially with 'high' and your reason for it.
2 hrs
|
Thanks, Tina. Gabriella has some tough meat to chew on here.
|
|
agree |
Phong Le
2 days 6 hrs
|
Thanks very much Phong. have a great weekend.
|
1 hr
We hope the elimination of death tolls is not just wishful thinking
an alternative to using the quotation marks.
Discussion
thank you a lot for your help and for this useful discussion. The author has decided to omit the entire sentence :(
Have a nice day.
Gabriella
On the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean: I think "fascinating" sounds reasonably natural, but "controversial" does sound odd. One problem is that to say something is "controversial" really means that people argue and disagree about it, whereas I have a hunch (my Italian is not good enough for me to be sure) that "controversa" means riven by controversy: in other words, the Mediterrenean is not an area people disagree about but an area in which people (to say the least) disagree with each other, if you follow me. "Controversial" is not the right word for that in English; something like "troubled" might be better.
We hope that the desire to stop deaths will go beyond wishful thinking to become a reality in such a fascinating, but controversial area.
We owe a special mention to all those who – believing in democracy, freedom and justice as invaluable values – lost their lives during the popular revolts in Middle East and North Africa since December 2010. We hope that “no more death tolls” does not remain wishful thinking and an unlikely thought, but instead becomes reality in the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area.
The author wants to say that he hopes "no more death tolls" will no longer be a mere slogan, but a reality.