Hi all,

In a gramma book, the author wrote that the following sentence is
correct:

"There are more babies born by women over 30 years old than under it."

I get confused with it. I think it should be something like

"There are more babies born by women over 30 years old than babies
born by those under 30."
In some books, they often test students by giving a wrong sentence for
example:

"He studies hard than my friend". The correct one should be "He
studies hard than my friend did (or does).

However, I also know there is a rule for omitting unnecesary words in
the case we use the verb "to be". For example,
He is taller than I. (full sentence is " He is taller than I am"). And
this sentence is still correct.

Is the sentence in the book the same case: i.e. the author applies
some rules to omit considerable number of words.
If so, can you explain for me that rule: when and how to omit words in
comparison sentences.?

On Jun 16, 10:36 am, "A.E lover" gmail.com> wrote:

I think the version with "it" is ok. "It" is a pronoun referring to
"30 years old". But it does sound a little odd. It could be put more
compactly:
"Most babies are born to women over thirty."
I think "born to" is more idiomatic than "born by"; the latter sounds
as if they are carrying them around, which I guess they do, but that's
not what they meant.

On Jun 16, 11:51 am, "John O'Flaherty" yahoo.com> wrote:

"A.E lover" gmail.com> writes:

"Over 30 years old" is an adjectival phrase, not a noun phrase, so it
is ungrammatical to refer to with with a pronoun. I would make it

More babies are borne by women over than under 30 years old.

"John O'Flaherty" yahoo.com> writes:

"Bear" (bore, borne) can mean "give birth to". The woman bears a
child; the child is borne by the woman. The child, also, is born to
the woman, "to be born" being a special idiom, amounting to an
intransitive verb. In the present context, where the focus is on the
women, "borne by" seems to me more appropriate; but the e is needed.

Joe Fineman wrote:

On Jun 16, 10:36 am, "A.E lover" gmail.com> wrote:

The specimen sentence is syntactically clumsy because
conceptually muddled, i.e. should not have been published
in the first place. Most obviously:
1. It presents an "existential statement," known to be a
frequent cause of difficulty.
2. It is idiomatically defective to write "more . . . over 30 years
than under it." We may write "more . . . over 30 years than under"
but the over/under distinction is metaphorical: it is clearer to
write "older than 30 or younger."

On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:44:20 -0700, "Skitt" comcast.net>
wrote:

Chuck Riggs wrote:

On Jun 16, 8:35 pm, Joe Fineman verizon.net> wrote: