Glossary entry (derived from question below)
English term or phrase:
..but the winding roads allowed only the passengers to enjoy...
English answer:
..but the winding roads
- The asker opted for community grading. The question was closed on 2013-04-10 14:54:08 based on peer agreement (or, if there were too few peer comments, asker preference.)
English term
Denmark
..but the winding roads allowed only the passengers to enjoy...
Will the sentence be ok if you insert "scenery" after enjoy, eg ? Or is it just un-English. ?
A road can allow two cars to pass but can it allow passengers to enjoy the scenery..?
| 4 +4 | ..but the winding roads |
David Moore (X)
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Apr 7, 2013 14:35: Tony M changed "Field" from "Art/Literary" to "Other" , "Field (specific)" from "Art, Arts & Crafts, Painting" to "General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters"
Apr 7, 2013 21:10: Yvonne Gallagher changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"
Non-PRO (3): Tony M, Thayenga, Yvonne Gallagher
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Responses
..but the winding roads
As an ENS of some years, I'd say it should have been written like this - and yes, you do need an object of "enjoy" here.
| Only must come before allowed, yes. Tah, mate |
| agree |
Jack Doughty
15 mins
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Thanks, Jack!
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| agree |
Tony M
30 mins
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Thanks, Tony!
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| agree |
Thayenga
: :)
2 hrs
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| agree |
Yvonne Gallagher
7 hrs
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| disagree |
Victoria Britten
: on the grounds that by changing the place of "only", you change the meaning of the sentence. The winding road also allowed the passengers, for example, to get from A to B!
17 hrs
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| agree |
Phong Le
19 hrs
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Discussion
Yes, you can use 'allowed' with 'winding road' as its subject like this — because in this situation, it is the winding-ness of the road that allowed or did not allow... although literally one might try and pick holes in it, any native EN speaker would read across this without any problem, since the intended meaning is unequivocally clear. Note, though, that 'road' on its own without any qualifier would probably not read so cleanly; think of it if you like as working because we read it as 'the winding {nature of the} road...'; that would probably help guide you in other situations.
If anything, I find the original sentence in the question rather stilted and unnatural; but I guess if this is some kind of language learning exercise, that's not entirely surprising.
And yes, you quite definitely need an object after enjoy, and "the scenery" seems suitable. I think that was your question.
'only' should usually be placed immediately before the item which is exclusive (here, passengers) — sometimes it can come after, but whichever, it needs to be as close as possible, to avoid misinterpretation.