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Is this sentence fine?

He gave his opinion on this issue. I’m more against it than for it.

Or what else can I say expressing the same meaning?

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3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

"I'm more for it than against it" sounds a lot better to me than the opposite. The most succinct way to say the same thing might just be simply:

He gave his opinion on this issue. I'm inclined to disagree with it.

(or "with him").

It conveys both that you don't agree, but also that it's not a 100% disagreement, and flows more smoothly than your example.

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Yes, I too think this is a better version. – trVoldemort Mar 15 '11 at 3:50
up vote 2 down vote

As long as the antecedent is clear, there is no harm in substituting a pronoun for a subject. In this case it is clear that it refers to "his opinion" on the matter. So, yes, it's fine as it stands.

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I interpreted "it" as referring to the issue, but in a real context I think it would be unambiguous. – Peter Taylor Mar 14 '11 at 13:46
1  
I don't agree. I would not normally use "for" referring to an opinion, so I would interpret this as referring to the issue, not to his opinion; and until I read your answer it never occurred to me that there was any ambiguity in this. – Colin Fine Mar 14 '11 at 17:55
@Colin Fine: I think the ambiguity lies in the He / I contrast. If the statement were "I gave my opinion on this issue. I'm more against it than for it," I would say it definitely referred to issue. But he is the subject of the first sentence and opinion is the object, which marks it for me as the central point of reference to which a pronoun might refer. – Robusto Mar 15 '11 at 3:42
up vote 1 down vote

You could say things like:

On the whole, I feel that the bad outweighs the good.

While the proposal has some interesting points, it also has problems that prevent me from endorsing it in its current form.

Certain things will need to be addressed before we can move forward with it.

There are more things that I don't like about it than things that I do like.

I think it will do more harm than good.

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please read Orwell's essay on the decline of English, then don't make such long sentences when a shorter one conveys just as much information! =P (especially the 2nd one...) – Claudiu Mar 14 '11 at 20:12

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