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Word order in: "We from equation (A) obtain (B)." or "We due to a+b=c find that (C) holds."

English Language & Usage Asked by rmcerafl on February 6, 2021

Given the following sentences that verbalise logical implications,

  • "We from equation (A) obtain (B)."
  • "We due to a+b=c find that (C) holds.",

would you say that the words in those sentences are ordered correctly?

(Or would it be better to write "We obtain (B) from equation (A)." or "We find that (C) holds due to a+b=c.", even though in these latter formulations the premise appears less immanent?)

One Answer

You should write these as:

From equation (A), we obtain (B),
Due to a+b=c, we find that (C) holds.

The subject doesn't have to come first in English sentences, and these are more natural word orders than the ones you suggest. (And we as a subject is so innocuous and unassuming that there's no reason that you need to contort the more natural word order to put it first.)

I believe your suggestions:

We from equation (A) obtain (B),
We due to a+b=c find that (C) holds.

would actually be classified as grammatical, but their word orders are rather unnatural, so unless you have a very good reason for putting a adverbial phrase between the subject and the verb, you should avoid it.

Answered by Peter Shor on February 6, 2021

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