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Spans Across
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Pavel314
Aug 22, 2014, 2:30:56 PM8/22/14
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I received a presentation to review this afternoon and wondered about the following sentence:
"The community spans across multiple areas within the health system."
At first I thought "spans across" was redundant as spanning implies going across something. Then I thought that the "across" added a sort of expansiveness that just plain "spans" didn't have.
There are many ways to rephrase the sentence to express the same concept but are there any opinions on the original phrasing?
Paul
"The community spans across multiple areas within the health system."
At first I thought "spans across" was redundant as spanning implies going across something. Then I thought that the "across" added a sort of expansiveness that just plain "spans" didn't have.
There are many ways to rephrase the sentence to express the same concept but are there any opinions on the original phrasing?
Paul
jpar...@gmail.com
Aug 22, 2014, 7:26:50 PM8/22/14
to
Paul, I have to go with redundancy. I don't believe "across" adds anything to the simpler "spans." To me, there is no added expansiveness by creating an unnecessary prepositional phrase..
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Peter Duncanson [BrE]
Aug 23, 2014, 4:05:02 AM8/23/14
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On Fri, 22 Aug 2014 11:30:56 -0700 (PDT), Pavel314 <pin...@jhmi.edu>
wrote:
I'd rephrase it as:
"The community comprises people from multiple areas within the health
system"
or
"The community has members in multiple areas within the health system".
Or something like that.
If the words "span" and "across" are essential (<smile>) then this
longer form might work.
"The community has a wide span. It has members across multiple areas
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.english.usage)
wrote:
"The community comprises people from multiple areas within the health
system"
or
"The community has members in multiple areas within the health system".
Or something like that.
If the words "span" and "across" are essential (<smile>) then this
longer form might work.
"The community has a wide span. It has members across multiple areas
within the health system".
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.english.usage)
Don Phillipson
Aug 25, 2014, 2:48:57 PM8/25/14
to
"Pavel314" <pin...@jhmi.edu> wrote in message
news:9d24ce96-5cdc-4e47...@googlegroups.com...
> "The community spans across multiple areas within the health system."
>
> At first I thought "spans across" was redundant as spanning implies going
> across something. Then
> I thought that the "across" added a sort of expansiveness that just plain
> "spans" didn't have.
This line of thought is unilluminating. The germane point is that the
verb SPANS usually takes a direct object (and AREAS here is the
indirect object.)
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
news:9d24ce96-5cdc-4e47...@googlegroups.com...
> "The community spans across multiple areas within the health system."
>
> At first I thought "spans across" was redundant as spanning implies going
> across something. Then
> I thought that the "across" added a sort of expansiveness that just plain
> "spans" didn't have.
verb SPANS usually takes a direct object (and AREAS here is the
indirect object.)
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
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