high quality gasoline

[milkalove]

Hi everyone,
I have a sentence which I am not so sure about.

Does this sound English to you?

The fact that high quality gasoline can be produced in the same process of extracting petrochemicals has given way to the unification of certain companies to exploit their resources better.

Now that I have typed down again, I must admit it sounds indeed veeery strange.
Thanks for your input!

 

[Gordonedi]

Hi everyone,
I have a sentence which I am not so sure about.

Does this sound English to you?

The fact that high quality gasoline can be produced in the same process of extracting petrochemicals has given way to the unification of certain companies to exploit their resources better.

Now that I have typed down again, I must admit it sounds indeed veeery strange.
Thanks for your input!

Two comments from me :
I'm not sure about "given way" in the sentence. Do you mean "led to", where the result is inevitable, or perhaps "enabled" where the companies have a choice ?

The word "better" should appear earlier in the sentence : as in "to better exploit their resources".

 

[milkalove]

Two comments from me :
I'm not sure about "given way" in the sentence. Do you mean "led to", where the result is inevitable, or perhaps "enabled" where the companies have a choice ?

The word "better" should appear earlier in the sentence : as in "to better explit their resources".

Hi Gordonedi,
First of all, thanks for replying.
Well, the companies did have a choice, so I suppose it would be better to say "enabled". As far as "better" goes, I put it before exploit before. However, Word was not happy with it and underlined it. So I moved it to the back of the sentence. I'll ignore Word and put it back to where it was.
Thanks again for your help!

 

[Gordonedi]

Hi Gordonedi,
As far as "better" goes, I put it before exploit before. However, Word was not happy with it and underlined it. So I moved it to the back of the sentence. I'll ignore Word and put it back to where it was.

There's a Master and Servant lesson in there somewhere ! The English language in all its colourful variants needs to be cherished and not standardised by adoption of rules selected by Bill Gates' programmers.

 

[psicutrinius]

One other thing, milkalove: Do they (the authors) really mean that the companies MERGED, or rather that they POOLED their resources?

 

[milkalove]

One other thing, milkalove: Do they (the authors) really mean that the companies MERGED, or rather that they POOLED their resources?

Hi psicutrinius,

No, they didn't merge, they just pool their resources to establish a mutually beneficial "relationship".

 

[psicutrinius]

In this case, I would substitute "unification of certain companies" by "resource pooling by certain companies..."

 

[boonognog]

...to exploit their resources better...

And I can explain why Word did not like the adverb placed between the infinitive 'to' and the verb 'exploit'. That is called a split infinitive, and it is generally considered incorrect in formal writing. Informally, people do it all the time. In fact, I agree with Gordonedi that the placement of the adverb (or adjective, as it were) affects the feel, if not the actual meaning, of certain phrases. But in this case, that is a 'legitimate' catch by Word that you might consider respecting. (Remember, though, the ultimate decision should be 'who are you writing for?')

 

[cuchuflete]

I am uncomfortable with this part--

process of extracting petrochemicals

Gasoline and other distillates are normally spoken of as being refined, rather than extracted. We don't have enough context to be sure if extraction is the appropriate process name for the production of the other petrochemicals.