Please help me...

[Võ Thanh Trọng Nhân (BabyDino)]

explain the grammatical structure of the following sentence:

This story, it later transpired, was untrue.

Then is it true? :-/

 

[Lê Huy Hoàng (hoanglh)]

Thế câu trước là thế nào, phải đặt trong contex thì mới dễ hiểu. Về ngữ pháp thì chả có vấn đề gì.

 

[Võ Thanh Trọng Nhân (BabyDino)]

Totally agreed about the grammar part as it's excerpted verbatim from Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary There's no context. Just look up the word "transpire." Please give an analysis. Much obliged.

 

[Lê Huy Hoàng (hoanglh)]

explain the grammatical structure of the following sentence:

This story, it later transpired, was untrue.

Then is it true? :-/

"it later transpired" supports or modifies "This story".
You can change it to This story which later transpired was untrue.

 

[Võ Thanh Trọng Nhân (BabyDino)]

Hoàng, thank you for your reply but I'm still confused. Let me tell you why.

This story, it later transpired, was untrue.

At first glance I thought the underlined phrase, or whatchamacallit, was an absolute phrase modifying the whole sentence but on closer look I realized it could not make any sense.

First, if it were an absolute phrase, the sentence could be rewritten as:

This story, it later being transpired, was untrue.

and according to absolute phrase's rule, "it" must stand for something else rather than "this story," as were it to stand for "this story," we would have to omit it. Then what does it stand for in this sentence? :-/ In case you don't have a handy grammar book, this is the link regarding absolute phrase: http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/phrases.htm.

Second, you would agree with me that "transpired" as used in the sentence must be in passive form for were it in active form it would have to be "transpiring" instead. Now let's take a look at its definition in Oxford Dictionary:

Transpire (v) (formal) [V that] (not usually used in the progressive tenses) if it transpires that sth has happened or is true, it is known or has been shown to be true: This story, it later transpired, was untrue.

I just can't figure out how it is put in such a passive form :-/

Actually I don't quite understand what kind of phrase you think the underlined one is, but adj phrase would be the last thing I think of. Please be more specific.

I'm thinking about the possibility that it is not a phrase, but rather put there simply for a change in position. The sentence in that case can be rewritten as:

It later transpired that this story was untrue.

Then it's really the first time I've encountered this kind of bizarre transposition. Somebody please explain this to me, or at least please give me a confirmation.

Sorry for being prolix. I'm here to learn.

 

[Lê Huy Hoàng (hoanglh)]

Hey, you are right, man. I'm totally wrong . It is clear in the below sentence I caught on the net:

Hence the congenial collective history of academicians and iconoclasts. Two attacks on sculptures by Michelangelo hint that the vandal is most traditional when most ostensibly deranged. On 21 May 1972, the Hungarian-born László Toth took a hammer to Michelangelo’s Pietà in St Peter’s, shouting “I am Jesus Christ; Christ is risen from the dead” (Toth, it later transpired, was quite sincerely convinced of his own divinity). In September 1991, Piero Camata, a failed painter and former heroin addict, hammered off the tip of one toe of Michelangelo’s David. He was, he said, “jealous of Michelangelo”, but we might equally judge him to have demonstrated a taste which, as the poet Paul Valéry put it, “is made up of a thousand distastes”.

I don't know this kind of structure. Hope you can get your answer soon.

 

[Lê Huy Hoàng (hoanglh)]

I've just got this:

That clause, "it later transpired", is a kind of shorthand for "AS it later transpired." It's acceptable, if a little stuffy and formal."

Charles Darling
author of Guide to Grammar and Writing

 

[Võ Thanh Trọng Nhân (BabyDino)]

Thank you, Hoàng. You just gave me the answer

 

[Võ Thanh Trọng Nhân (BabyDino)]

Following is one of the analogy questions I'm quite uncertained of. Chip in help please.

Directions: In each of the following questions, a related pair of words or phrases is followed by five lettered pairs of words or phrases. Select the lettered pair that best expresses a relationship similar to that expressed in the original pair.


INTEREST : FASCINATE

(A) Vex : Enrage

(B) Vindicate : Condemn

(C) Regret : Rue

(D) Appall : Bother

(E) Weary : Fatigue