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Is the following quote correct English?

Strength cannot beat more strength without ju jitsu

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Which aspect(s) are you concerned about the correctness of? The spelling of ju jitsu, or the wording, or the capitalisation, or…? – PLL Feb 20 '11 at 19:28
I agree with PLL; in a question tagged with spelling, and asking if the sentence is correct, I would understand the question is about spelling. – kiamlaluno Feb 20 '11 at 19:52
my bad, I will re-tag it. – IAdapter Feb 20 '11 at 20:17
@Dori I was wondering if the quote was correct, thats it. there is nothing more here. it sounded like it was not grammatically correct. – IAdapter Feb 21 '11 at 8:33

4 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

The quote

Strength cannot beat more strength without ju jitsu

may sound awkwardly phrased to some, but it is correct in every grammatical sense. This is readily apparent if one considers strength and more strength personified.

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up vote 1 down vote

In a comment, I asked:

What exactly is the question here? You said that "its [sic] a quote, so I would rather not change it." So if you aren't asking about spelling, and you aren't asking about rephrasing—what are you asking?

And just so you know: in American English, it's almost always spelled jiu jitsu.

The OP replied:

I was wondering if the quote was correct, thats it. there is nothing more here. it sounded like it was not grammatically correct.

Is the quote correct? I can't say for sure, but I can say that there are zero Google hits for that full phrase (other than to this page, which I figure doesn't count).

Similar phrases I did find:

Overall, there's very few hits for this, so I wouldn't call it a common saying. And it's definitely not a common saying about jiu jitsu.

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its from YouTube video, but I bet the orginal was "Strength cannot beat more strength without Gracie Jiu jitsu.." :) nice find :) its not common, but it sounds cool and right :P its about fedor vs. big foot fight. fedor could have won that fight if he had better technique. – IAdapter Feb 21 '11 at 12:15
up vote 5 down vote

Grammatically, I think that your statement is fine, but I'd find it easier to understand if you included the subject in the sentence:

One cannot beat a stronger opponent without ju jitsu.

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its a quote, so I would rather not change it. thx for responce. – IAdapter Feb 20 '11 at 20:19
up vote 7 down vote

Of course not -- there are many martial arts that can do the job ;o).

On a more relevant and grammatical note, this would be more correct:

Strength cannot beat greater strength without Ju Jitsu.

More would be appropriate if strength were something that came in units rather than in degree.

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not really. please watch UFC1 and see what I mean. it was proven. your theory is not. – IAdapter Feb 20 '11 at 20:24
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Note that the term martial arts encompasses such things as marksmanship and archery as well as hand-to-hand combat techniques. And there's the fact many hand-to-hand disciplines also involve a code of ethics that would prohibit contests like UFC matches because of the understanding that the surest means of incapacitating an opponent is to kill him. – bye Feb 20 '11 at 21:02
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Um, no. You may disagree all you want, but history is against you. – bye Feb 20 '11 at 22:32
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Martial arts literally means arts of war, and the phrase has been around the English language for a lot longer than Asian-derived hand-to-hand fighting techniques have been with us in the English-speaking world. – bye Feb 20 '11 at 22:47
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@Jimi: Not in the sense used here. When describing an attribute, one would normally use "stronger" or "greater strength"; "more strength" would be used more in the sense of "put your back into it" or "it needs more elbow grease". It's subtle, but different. – bye Feb 22 '11 at 6:42
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