abandoned an island to/for missiles testing.

[Tyrion Lann]

Hi folks.

1.Indian Government abandoned an island to missiles testing.

2.Indian Government abandoned an island for missiles testing.

What you think , which one would be regarded as grammatically correct sentence .
For me the 1st one sounds more agrammatical, while the 2nd one sounds more natural.
Thanks

 

[Andygc]

which one would be regarded as grammatically correct sentence

Neither.
"The Indian Government .... missile testing." Either preposition is acceptable.

What do you think; which one would be regarded as a grammatically correct sentence?

 

[Scrawny goat]

Source, please?

 

[Tyrion Lann]

Hi, Andygc.
Why you said neither , and after that you said both prepositions are acceptable. I don't get you .

Source, please?

Sorry, but I can't disclose our nation's secrets to any form.. just kidding.
Well this sentence has no source because I made it for myself.

 

[Tyrion Lann]

Ohh i got you sorry.

 

[Andygc]

And that should be "I got", not "i got".

 

[Edinburgher]

Frankly, I don't understand what the sentence is trying to say.
Has the government abandoned the island (in the sense of evacuating it -- forcing its inhabitants to abandon it) in order to use it for missile tests?
Or has the government abandoned the idea of using the island for missile testing?

 

[Scrawny goat]

Frankly, I don't understand what the sentence is trying to say.
Has the government abandoned the island (in the sense of evacuating it -- forcing its inhabitants to abandon it) in order to use it for missile tests?
Or has the government abandoned the idea of using the island for missile testing?

Or (much less likely, but grammatically possible) has the government abandoned their island and left it for someone else to test missiles on?

 

[Andygc]

Or has the government abandoned the idea of using the island for missile testing?

I struggle to see how it could be interpreted as meaning that.

 

[Edinburgher]

I struggle to see how it could be interpreted as meaning that.

Depends what you mean by "it". The version with "to" wouldn't work, but that with "for" could, I think.
By "abandoned the idea", I don't of course mean they had been thinking of using the island for this purpose, and then changed their minds before putting the idea into practice, but I mean they had actually been using the island for this purpose, and then decided to stop.

 

[Andygc]

"The Indian Government abandoned an island for missile testing." For me to understand that there was an existing "island for missile testing" I'd need context and background, including a reason to believe that there was more than one island for missile testing, and that one of them was being abandoned. That's a bit of a stretch.

 

[Edinburgher]

For me to understand that there was an existing "island for missile testing" I'd need context and background,

Of course.

including a reason to believe that there was more than one island for missile testing,

Why? Is the idea that the government maintains no island (or no other island) for missile testing unthinkable?

I know that lack of context will make this difficult to answer, but what do you think the sentences mean, or could have been intended to mean?

 

[Andygc]

Why?

Because the sentence is "abandoned an island for missile testing". If that is the only Indian government's missile-testing island I need even more background to understand why the indefinite article is being used - it must be a discussion about missile-testing islands, but with the writer deciding, for some inexplicable reason, to call them "islands for missile testing". I find the interpretation you suggested so unlikely as to be close to impossible. But maybe that's just me.

I take that the island has been abandoned, and the purpose of the abandonment is missile testing. I can make no assumption about who is doing the missile testing because the sentences do not tell me.

 

[Edinburgher]

Because the sentence is "abandoned an island for missile testing"

It's just an island. Any old island. Same as when the British government compulsory-purchased an island in Scotland for carrying out anthrax testing. Then they abandoned it too.
More recently, it appears that, with apologies to Bach, sheep may safely graze on Gruinard again. Amazing what they can do with a bit of formaldehyde and sea water.

I could easily imagine news reports saying that "a Scottish island that had been used for anthrax testing has been abandoned by the Government", even when (as far as the reporters were aware) there was only ever one such island.

 

[Andygc]

No problem at all with that - "a Scottish island that had been used for anthrax testing has been abandoned by the Government". But that is not a comparable sentence. If the OP had written "The Indian government abandoned an island that had been used for missile testing." we would have a comparable sentence. But he didn't, his corrected sentence is "The Indian government abandoned an island for missile testing." You appear to want "island for missile testing" to mean "missile-testing island". That, to me, is a very strange interpretation. Gruinard was never an "island for anthrax testing", it was "an island where anthrax was tested", which could also be called "an anthrax-testing island".

 

[Edinburgher]

You appear to want "island for missile testing" to mean "missile-testing island". That, to me, is a very strange interpretation.

I see what you mean now, but when, in #7, I suggested the alternative interpretation:
Has the government abandoned the island (in the sense of evacuating it -- forcing its inhabitants to abandon it) in order to use it for missile tests?
I did so despite the fact that I thought that would also be a very strange thing to say, because in that case the government is really doing the very opposite of abandoning it, it is seizing and reserving it for that purpose.

 

[Tyrion Lann]

What i feel is, word "abandon" can't be used here. Eg. "Don't abandon yourself to drugs," which means you have given up your life and it's upon drugs what they do with your life .

When you abandon a place you never go back.
I think this is the main problem with my sentence, when the Indian government abandoned an island for forever ,how could the same island has been used by the same government or country ?

To make India army stronger, The Indian government dedicated an island to missile testing.
I think , this sentence is less ambiguous.

 

[Scrawny goat]

What i feel is, word "abandon" can't be used here. Eg. "Don't abandon yourself to drugs," which means you have given up your life and it's upon drugs what they do with your life .

When you abandon a place you never go back.
I think this is the main problem with my sentence, when the Indian government abandoned an island for forever ,how could the same island has been used by the same government or country ?

To make India army stronger, The Indian government dedicated an island to missile testing.
I think , this sentence is less ambiguous.

No. That’s incorrect.
Also, please note that we do not leave a space between a word and a following comma. So, it’s like this.

 

[Andygc]

because in that case the government is really doing the very opposite of abandoning it, it is seizing and reserving it for that purpose.

Yes, I understand that point. I was concentrating originally on the question - "which preposition?" We've wandered into possible meanings of the sentences in the OP, and now we're going off into the use of "abandon". I think it can be used here, although the implication of using it is that the island would be used for testing by someone other than the Indian government. Gruinard was abandoned, but that was because of the results of the anthrax tests, not to undertake the tests.

You are, of course, right. If the Indian government is doing the testing, then it has not "abandoned" the island, but may well have "evacuated" it.

Changing the verb will almost certainly change the answer to the preposition question.