Tell me more ×
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 0 down vote favorite

In your opinion is both superfluous in the following sentence?

Efforts from both experimentalist and theoretician communities, started to increase over the last decades in order to turn the hydrogen energy from a possible solution to a reality.

I used both, even if it seems superfluous, to show emphasis that, although at the beginning of hydrogen energy research, most of researches were experimentalists, it turns out in the last decades that theoreticians are interested in such fields as well.

A second doubt I have is if the expression "experimentalist and theoretician communities" is correct in the way I'm using it. I've read many times expressions like: "Each session, devoted to a kind of spectroscopy, will include invited contributions from both experimentalists and theoreticians" or "time-scale motions remains a challenge to experimentalists and theoreticians alike". But in my sentence I'd like to make clear that theoreticians and experimentalist working in different fields, as for example catalysis, electrochemistry and computational chemistry, are now given attention to hydrogen energy. That's why I used communities.

In you opinion, does it make sense?

share|improve this question
2  
Why would you put a comma after both? – JLG Nov 20 '12 at 0:27
2  
@JLG: Why would you bother to ask someone who appears not to know how to properly punctuate a sentence why he's done it incorrectly? Ignorance is as good a reason as "Typo!" in this case. Whatever the reason, it won't help you or anyone else answer the OP's question, will it? – Bill Franke Nov 20 '12 at 0:55
1  
"The efforts of experimentalists as well as theoreticians" could be better, though that's not the only alternative. – Kris Nov 20 '12 at 5:33
Commenters better note the user's rep/ profile before offering advice or down/ close voting. – Kris Nov 20 '12 at 5:35
@Kris: I always check before offering answers. OP has no profile and rep of 2. Downvotes prevent adding comments, giving answers, etc. Yesterday or the day before I registered for another SE area and was lucky to get 100 rep points free because I associated my new account with this one. At first, though, I couldn't do anything but read because I started out with 1 rep point only. – Bill Franke Nov 20 '12 at 10:53

closed as not a real question by MετάEd, FumbleFingers, Will Hunting, RegDwighт♦ Nov 20 '12 at 10:14

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.

1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote

No, the expression is incorrect for a few reasons.

First, as JLG obliquely points out, the comma after both is incorrect.
Second, the word both is superfluous in this case.
Third, the names of the two communities seem a little abnormal to me.

Try this: Effort(s) from theoreticians and experimenters...

However, a felicitous phrase requires a context. This expression has no context; therefore, it's pointless to ask whether it's correct. Even granting that my revision is grammatically and semantically correct, whether it's semantically and stylistically optimal is not determinable because there is no context that permits judgment.

Provide a full sentence or perhaps even a larger context. Tell us the field of study. The more we know about what you want to say and why, the easier it will be to help you craft a reasonable expression or at least answer a reasonable question about it's grammaticality and style and usage: in context.

share|improve this answer
The generally accepted word in the physical sciences is "experimentalist" and not "experimenter". – Peter Shor Nov 20 '12 at 3:08
@Peter: Thank you for that information. In the biomed world we call them "basic scientists" (PhDs in whatever biomed field) because they do basic science (experimental) articles; practicing MDs do clinical articles. The theoreticians ought to be called "theoreticalists" at the very least, then, just for rhetorical balance & structural parallelism. MW3UDE: "2: one who likes to experiment as an innovator, artist, or explorer [a bold experimentalist with paragraph and punctuation —H.G.Wells]": almost sounds like a characterization of Joyce's Finnegans Wake, but Wells wasn't +ly impressed. – Bill Franke Nov 20 '12 at 3:43
@BillFranke Thank you very much for your help. The complete sentence would be the following: "Efforts, from both experimentalist and theoretician communities, started to increase over the last decades in order to turn the hydrogen energy from a possible solution to a reality" The field is physicochemistry – ziulfer Nov 20 '12 at 10:17
@ziulfer: Thank you for the sentence & info. I think I might revise it just slightly: "Efforts from (both) the experimentalist and the theoretician communities began {to increase / increasing [CHOOSE ONE]} over the past n# [How many?] decades to {turn the potential solution of hydrogen energy into / make the potential solution of hydrogen energy [CHOOSE ONE]} a reality." – Bill Franke Nov 20 '12 at 10:47
The felicitous phrase, no doubt employing words containing the ubiquitous schwa, seems to have met its end at the beak of the frumious Bandersnatch (either that or MετάEd, FumbleFingers, Will Hunting, & RegDwighт). But I'll resurrect Bill's expression. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 20 '12 at 11:10
show 3 more comments

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.