After ending 2018 in freefall, oil prices have rallied approximately 25% to start the year, boosted by efforts by global producers to cut supply.
what is the exact meaning of “to start the year”?
I don’t understand “rally 00% to start the year”
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Hi Steve, and thank you for wanting to contribute to EL&U’s knowledge base. Can you please edit the title so that it is more descriptive of your question?– LawrenceCommented Feb 25, 2019 at 8:51
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The quote says “to start the year” - no “the”.– LawrenceCommented Feb 25, 2019 at 8:52
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It doesn't have an "exact meaning".– Hot LicksCommented Feb 26, 2019 at 1:58
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Really? Vote to close. Sorry...– LambieCommented Jan 3 at 16:42
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1 Answer
It means that the year began with a rally. Another way to write it might be:
After ending 2018 in freefall, oil prices started the year by rallying approximately 25%, boosted by efforts by global producers to cut supply.
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Yes. Both the original expression (the to-infinitive clause) and your paraphrase often show intent / following through ('We started the year with a new advertising campaign'), but here there can be no volitional agent in the linguistics sense (though obviously human agency is involved at some level in the determining of oil prices). Here. then, 'to start the year' is simply a punchier synonym of 'at the start of the year', showing just a temporal, not an executional, qualification. Commented Jan 3 at 12:53
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@EdwinAshworth Is this usage common or only used in journalism? It’s my first time to hear about the function of to-infinitive to mean a temporal qualification. I also can’t understand how “to start the year” can mean “at the start of the year”. Should I consider this usage of to-infinitive as a purpose? Commented Jan 3 at 13:25
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@MG As the above comment says, 'to start the year' means no more than 'at the beginning of the year' here. Merely a time reference (obviously, oil prices can't themselves have a purpose in how they behave). This sense is rarer than the enable sense ('To start the car, we had to push') and the deliberately mark an occasion / undertaking sense ('To start the event, we commissioned a brass band'), or the instrumental sense ('To watch the race, we decided to sit in the grandstand.'). // It's a fairly formal usage when used in the purely temporal sense. Commented Jan 3 at 16:13
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I think this style might have originated from a sense of suggesting economic markets have agency. I don't think it's the only such phrase, along with the "bull" and "bear" metaphors.– BarmarCommented Jan 3 at 17:18