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I need some help with the phrase "to be reduced to":

quote 1
From this point onwards, the Kuomintang was reduced to control of Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu Islands, and two major islands of Dongsha Islands and Nansha Islands.

quote 2
The end of the Hundred Years War saw the loss of Saxony in 1454. Subsequently, England was reduced to controlling Calais and the 'Pale' around this town.

Is there a difference between "reduced to control of" and "reduced to controlling"?

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Seems this is a question about controlling or having control of rather than reduced to – mplungjan Mar 9 at 6:17
Agree. That makes it unclear where the OP's confusion is. Please edit the question to include more context which makes plain what the difficulty is. – MετάEd Mar 9 at 15:41
OP (puppet) is no longer around to clarify the question. Suggest speedy deletion. – MετάEd Mar 12 at 12:42

closed as not a real question by tchrist, MετάEd, Andrew Leach, Matt Эллен, Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Mar 20 at 15:18

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

2 Answers

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Different authors, different styles. Strictly a matter of personal preference. I think that American English prefers to controlling (I certainly do) and that British English prefers to control of. Academic writers of all stripes and provenances, however, almost always prefer the more verbose expression (so I'm surprised that it's not to the control of.

I suggest that you eliminate unnecessary words when you write (especially) and speak. Verbosity is inherently pretentious, even if it's learned at one's mother's knee.

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up vote 1 down vote

Those are two acceptable ways of saying the same thing.

I can say:

I was reduced to the defense of my character during prosecution.

Just as I can also opt for:

I was reduced to defending my character during prosecution.

Both of those statements indicate that my faculties were reduced to the focus of a particular subset of defense at that point in time. In my example, it implies that I can do many things to defend myself during prosecution, such as strategically wording my responses, answering questions in a certain manner, etc. However, something occurred during prosecution that reduced my functions as a defendant to the "defense of my character".

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