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Ofelia
03-17-2004, 06:19 AM
Does the following sentence sound O'key?
"The health club is the only one where the swimming pool and the jucuzzi add up one integrate system by which means water is cleaned up to blue clarity."
Thanking you in anticipation.
:roll:

Pete
03-17-2004, 06:43 PM
Does the following sentence sound O'key?
"The health club is the only one where the swimming pool and the jucuzzi add up one integrate system by which means water is cleaned up to blue clarity."
Thanking you in anticipation.
:roll:
(I have never heard of "O'key", nor can I find it in the dictionary. An informal term for "acceptable" is "okay", also spelled "OK" or "Ok". I often use that as a way to show that a sentence doesn't have an error.)

Sorry, but I can't tell what your sentence is supposed to mean. I cannot imagine how combining a pool and a jacuzzi could cause water to be cleaned, but that is what you appear to be saying. I think I can tell what you mean by "blue clarity", but really, clean water should be clear, not blue; in any case, it doesn't sound at all natural.

Your ending also isn't natural. You often see the slightly less awkward phrase, "Thanking you in advance." It is much better simply to say, "Thank you."

Ofelia
03-18-2004, 02:32 AM
Dear Pete,
Thank you very much for your valuable comment.Honestly, I also find this sentence sound awkward. The problem of translation is that the sentence is senseless even in the original language.I also can't understand how combining a jacuzzi and a swimming pool cause water to be clean and weather clean water should be of a blue colour. I am not quite sure if I have the right to change the author's meaning, anyway, I dare try doing it. Please, check it up.
"The health club has an intigrate system added up by a swimming pool and a jucuzzi; the water in them is cleaned up to an ideal clarity."
As for "O'k", once I saw a native speaker writing that as"O'key", I guess now, it was a misprint.
Another question concerns the phrase "thanking you in anticipation." Is it used just in a formal
style or is it an archaism and shouldn't be used in the modern English?
Thank you.

Pete
03-19-2004, 09:13 PM
-- This is much better; it only needs a few changes.
>"The health club has an integrated system <strike>added up by</strike> consisting of a swimming pool and a jucuzzi; the water in them is cleaned up to an ideal clarity."

>As for "O'k", once I saw a native speaker writing that as"O'key", I guess now, it was a misprint.
-- I'm not familiar with an apostrophe in either "ok" or "okay".

>Another question concerns the phrase "thanking you in anticipation." Is it used just in a formal style or is it an archaism and shouldn't be used in the modern English?

-- It certainly seems "old fashioned" to me. An on-line search found advice that appeals to me: "Avoid 'stuffy' phrases in business letters like 'thanking you in advance/anticipation,' etc." Another source said to try to re-write such phrases in fresh, original ways.

HOWEVER, I searched Google for the phrase itself and found thousands of pages with letters using it. A brief sample showed a majority were used by people who probably were not native speakers of English, typically from Asian or African countries. However a number were from UK sites as well. I even found 2 UK sites that suggested that people use this phrase in formal letters.

It seems to be the case that some people expect, maybe even want meaningless, old-fashioned, stuffy phrases in business letters. One correspondent on this list told me that in some Asian countries, people consider phrases like this to be a form of "polite" expression. I don't know about that. I still think it should be possible to be polite and clear without using old-fashioned "stuffy" phrases that don't add real content to the letter. I suppose you will have to decide for yourself. (I myself try hard to avoid using expressions like this.)