English Language & Usage Asked by Frank Shang on March 1, 2021
Can someone please explain to me, how does the sentence “The smallest x into which y can be divided” makes sense. Is it more correct to say “The smallest x which y can divide into.”?
Both phrases (they are not sentences) would be precisely equivalent in meaning, if you hadn't changed from a passive to a middle verb.
The first is more literary;
The smallest x which y can be divided into
is much more common in ordinary speech.
There used to be a lot of people who believed that the second was "wrong", and you may still encounter old-fashioned teachers or editors who have this idea.
The change from "can be divided into" to "can divide into" is a completely separate issue , but in this case has little effect on the meaning, and could be applied in either sentence.
Answered by Colin Fine on March 1, 2021
They are both fragments of a question that should start with "What is" and end with a question mark. An example would be "What is the smallest x into which y can be divided?" or "What is the smallest x which y can divide into? Even then, since it seems to be some sort of Math problem, in order to answer this question you would still need to know the values of x and y. So you can now think of this sentence fragment as an incomplete Mathematics word problem also.
Answered by user397922 on March 1, 2021
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