Aug 30, 2004 20:57
19 yrs ago
English term
Ukraine
careful, caring, and perfectionist
Native in: Russian 
, Ukrainian
Works in: English to Russian, Russian to English, Ukrainian to English, and 1 more.
temperature’s reaching the Curie point
English
Science
Science (general)
The paper describes the phenomenon of thermal failure, which is due to the imbalance between hysteresis heat generation and heat transfer into the environment, followed by the temperature’s reaching the Curie point.
Dear native speakers, does the English (if any :) above sound good to you, especially the part after the comma? If no, how would you correct it [that part] then?
Thank you in advance
Dear native speakers, does the English (if any :) above sound good to you, especially the part after the comma? If no, how would you correct it [that part] then?
Thank you in advance
Responses
Responses
+2
51 mins
Robert Tucker (X)
United Kingdom
Native in English
&
English
Specializes in field
Related KudoZ points
:
4
Selected
Grammatically correct as it stands
"Comprehensive English Grammar" by Eckersley and Eckersley on the subject:
The gerund is modified by a possessive adjective or by the possessive form of nouns that can take this form.
He was chosen because of his being an engineer
Please excuse my interrupting you
We are quite used to William's grumbling
They are looking forward to Mary's coming
This construction is, however, a literary one rather than a conversational one. In colloquial speech it is fairly common to hear a personal pronoun instead of the possessive adjective.
He was chosen because of him being an engineer
Please excuse me interrupting you
We are quite used to William grumbling
They are looking forward to Mary coming
On this basis “... followed by the temperature’s reaching ..” should be the higher grammar.
I agree though that “.. followed by the temperature reaching ...” sounds better. Whether it is just “snappier” in the scientific context or whether it is because “... the temperature's reaching ..” seems to imply some sort of ability on the part of “temperature” to have some control over where it reaches I cannot quite say.
Also, though, “ hysteresis heat generation” and “heat transfer into the environment” are nouns, so possibly there is some logic in having the nounal construction “... temperature's reaching ...” rather than the verbal construction “... temperature reaching ...”.
The gerund is modified by a possessive adjective or by the possessive form of nouns that can take this form.
He was chosen because of his being an engineer
Please excuse my interrupting you
We are quite used to William's grumbling
They are looking forward to Mary's coming
This construction is, however, a literary one rather than a conversational one. In colloquial speech it is fairly common to hear a personal pronoun instead of the possessive adjective.
He was chosen because of him being an engineer
Please excuse me interrupting you
We are quite used to William grumbling
They are looking forward to Mary coming
On this basis “... followed by the temperature’s reaching ..” should be the higher grammar.
I agree though that “.. followed by the temperature reaching ...” sounds better. Whether it is just “snappier” in the scientific context or whether it is because “... the temperature's reaching ..” seems to imply some sort of ability on the part of “temperature” to have some control over where it reaches I cannot quite say.
Also, though, “ hysteresis heat generation” and “heat transfer into the environment” are nouns, so possibly there is some logic in having the nounal construction “... temperature's reaching ...” rather than the verbal construction “... temperature reaching ...”.
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
Narasimhan Raghavan
: "reaching" is a noun here and "temperature's" indicates possession. Kennedy's becoming the president was not liked by Nixon. An understatement!
7 hrs
|
| agree |
rcdv
8 hrs
|
| disagree |
Philip Taylor
: As you say yourself, this is a literary rather than a conversational passage. Sounds much better without the 's.
14 hrs
|
|
Sorry, but I think my grammar reference is saying that the form with the 's is the more literary. University grammars may be more concerned about clarity of meaning and whether the more nounal or the more verbal fits in better.
|
|
| agree |
Yolanda Broad
: Yes, this is the grammatically correct structure, even if rarely used in every day writing. In a scientific writing context, use of correct grammar would be appropriate.
17 hrs
|
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "Thank you all very, very much!
Robert, your explanation is excellent!
Dusty, you turned out to be absolutely right about the subordinate clause. I've used the version you proposed. Also I've corrected the part with hysteresis into heat generation due to hysteresis losses.
Thank you all once more and good luck!
Dmitrii
"
+4
6 mins
Michael Powers (PhD)
United States
United States
Native in English
&
English
United States
US Court Cert. 1980 Ph.D. 1981
Native in: English
Works in: Spanish to English, Portuguese to English, English to Spanish, and 2 more.
English term (edited):
temperature�s reaching the curie point
temperature reaching the curie point
It sounds better to me, personally, without the apostrophe. If you look on Google, the pair of words "temperture reaching" is much, much more frequent than "temperature's reaching"
Mike :)
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 8 mins (2004-08-30 21:05:31 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
The difference seems to be 3,820 to 7, although sometimes temperature is followed by a comma before the word \"reaching\". But even with a reduction of half, it is much, much more common to not use the apostrophe in this construct.
Mike :)
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 8 mins (2004-08-30 21:05:31 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
The difference seems to be 3,820 to 7, although sometimes temperature is followed by a comma before the word \"reaching\". But even with a reduction of half, it is much, much more common to not use the apostrophe in this construct.
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
Orla Ryan
42 mins
|
| agree |
Ramesh Madhavan
: 's is not required.
11 hrs
|
| agree |
Orsolya Mance
12 hrs
|
| agree |
Philip Taylor
: definitely remove the 's
15 hrs
|
15 mins
Jean-Luc Dumont
France
France
France
Accuracy, Ability, Availability
Native in: French
Works in: English to French, French to English, Spanish to French, and 3 more.
English term (edited):
temperature�s reaching the curie point
with the temperature reaching the Curie point
can replace "followed by the temperature’s reaching the curie point" with "with the temperature reaching the Curie point"
no reason to use 's" here - correctly speaking no possessive case is involved - although the attempt here, I think, was to make "reaching the curie point" appear as an attribute of the temperature - it is not good use here
and no verb is needed either - 's is not contracted form of is - for that it would be :
followed by the fact that the temperature is reaching the Curie point
no reason to use 's" here - correctly speaking no possessive case is involved - although the attempt here, I think, was to make "reaching the curie point" appear as an attribute of the temperature - it is not good use here
and no verb is needed either - 's is not contracted form of is - for that it would be :
followed by the fact that the temperature is reaching the Curie point
1 hr
Ernesto de Lara
Works in field
Technology Translations
Native in: Spanish 
Works in: English to Spanish, German to Spanish, Italian to Spanish, and 9 more.
English term (edited):
temperature�s reaching the curie point
followed after the temperature reachs the Curie point.
I am not familiar with this phenomenon, but I will suppose that you are meaning that failure occurs just after temperature reachs the c.p.
and not before.
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr 43 mins (2004-08-30 22:40:21 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
If so, then phrase should read \"followed before the temp.....\"
and not before.
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr 43 mins (2004-08-30 22:40:21 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
If so, then phrase should read \"followed before the temp.....\"
11 hrs
English term (edited):
temperature�s reaching the curie point
See explanation below...
I agree with Robert's point that the apostrophe on temperature's IS correct, though possibly slightly pedantic these days, and it could be left out without the risk of confusing the majority of readers.
What concerns me slightly more is the earlier use of 'which...' Of course, I am not familiar with the specific phenomenon, nor with the rest of your wider context, but I can't help feeling that the use of a subordinate clause, with a comma followed by 'which' may be wrong here. Basically, the grammatical reason behind this are too complicated for me to explain to you with confidence, but it just sounds 'odd' to me. If you left out the part of the sentence in commas from 'which....environment', the whole sentence becomes nonsense, whilst as I see it, this part of the sentence is crucial.
I think maybe you should look at this again carefully; it depends a lot as to what the source language was, as this will change what the original construction was meant to be. I suspect what you really need to be saying is something like:
"The paper describes the phenomenon of thermal failure occuring as a result of imbalance between hysteresis heat generation and heat transfer into the environment, followed by the temperature’s reaching the Curie point."
Do you see what I'm getting at?
also, that 'hysteresis heat generation' I'm not familiar with the term, but I take it to mean 'heat generated as a result of hysteresis' (of what, in what?) But be careful that it doesn't in fact mean 'hysteresis between heat being generated and heat being transferred/dissipated into the environment'
Although your sentence construction is largely grammatically correct and very plausible, I have certain reservations as to whether or not it is conveying exactly the meaning you require...
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 20 hrs 32 mins (2004-08-31 17:29:40 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
In response to Ramesh\'s extremely valid point:
I quite agree that this is of course basically a language question; however, correct use of the language may require the correct technical knowledge, and with all due respect to the Asker, of course we have no way of knowing that; I just wanted to highlight the fact that the technical details may well have an important bearing here on the sentence construction...
I don\'t know about the atomic energy bit, but I entirely agree about hysteresis-loss heating --- if I\'ve understood correctly, what it\'s trying to say is that heat is being generated faster than it can be dissipated, and at a certain point [Curie point] the magnetic properties of the material will change, producing (presumably) yet further undesirable effects.
What concerns me slightly more is the earlier use of 'which...' Of course, I am not familiar with the specific phenomenon, nor with the rest of your wider context, but I can't help feeling that the use of a subordinate clause, with a comma followed by 'which' may be wrong here. Basically, the grammatical reason behind this are too complicated for me to explain to you with confidence, but it just sounds 'odd' to me. If you left out the part of the sentence in commas from 'which....environment', the whole sentence becomes nonsense, whilst as I see it, this part of the sentence is crucial.
I think maybe you should look at this again carefully; it depends a lot as to what the source language was, as this will change what the original construction was meant to be. I suspect what you really need to be saying is something like:
"The paper describes the phenomenon of thermal failure occuring as a result of imbalance between hysteresis heat generation and heat transfer into the environment, followed by the temperature’s reaching the Curie point."
Do you see what I'm getting at?
also, that 'hysteresis heat generation' I'm not familiar with the term, but I take it to mean 'heat generated as a result of hysteresis' (of what, in what?) But be careful that it doesn't in fact mean 'hysteresis between heat being generated and heat being transferred/dissipated into the environment'
Although your sentence construction is largely grammatically correct and very plausible, I have certain reservations as to whether or not it is conveying exactly the meaning you require...
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 20 hrs 32 mins (2004-08-31 17:29:40 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
In response to Ramesh\'s extremely valid point:
I quite agree that this is of course basically a language question; however, correct use of the language may require the correct technical knowledge, and with all due respect to the Asker, of course we have no way of knowing that; I just wanted to highlight the fact that the technical details may well have an important bearing here on the sentence construction...
I don\'t know about the atomic energy bit, but I entirely agree about hysteresis-loss heating --- if I\'ve understood correctly, what it\'s trying to say is that heat is being generated faster than it can be dissipated, and at a certain point [Curie point] the magnetic properties of the material will change, producing (presumably) yet further undesirable effects.
Peer comment(s):
| neutral |
Ramesh Madhavan
: Dusty, since this was a language related question, I refrained from tech-stuff. The text appears to be about atomic energy and they seem to be talking about hysterisis (loss) in electro-magnetic gadgets (which results in heat being generated)
5 hrs
|
|
Thanks a lot, Ramesh! Please see note above..
|
Discussion