I have a question about the sentence "The evolution of a process admits the following description". I checked then the phrase "admits the following description" in Ngram Viewer and found no occurrence. Neither did I found for "allows the following description". Is there something wrong with them? In case it is, what are appropriate substitutions?
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1Don't expect Ngrams to find occurrences of all grammatical phrases; the graph flatlines if there are two few of them to make a good chart of the fluctuations in frequency over time. There are a number of Google hits for both these phrases, and I see nothing wrong with either of them.– Peter ShorJun 24, 2014 at 14:22
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2The construction of admit with a situational subject and a descriptional object is just one (fairly formal) way to provide a description of a situation. Quite often there are several possible descriptions available, and one finds phrases like this admits (of) several explanations/descriptions: ...– John LawlerJun 24, 2014 at 14:24
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1@John: I was just about to comment that I personally would probably include of in most instances of this construction - perhaps precisely because it's a relatively formal/uncommon usage for most contexts (the preposition makes it easier to recognise as something of a "stock phrase" only loosely related to the more common admit = confess sense).– FumbleFingersJun 24, 2014 at 14:32
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@FumbleFingers The definitions for admit that have the meaning here ("allow the possibility of") all seem to be intransitive. That would seem to therefore require the "of" or a similar prepositional phrase to specify what they allow...or am I reading too much into the intransitiveness?– JeffSaholJun 24, 2014 at 14:55
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1But really, why would one want to write that instead of, "the evolution of a process can be described as follows..."?– JimJun 24, 2014 at 15:55
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1 Answer
There is nothing wrong with that phrasing. I agree with John Lawler's comment that it is formal, or possibly stilted speech, but still correct. I would suspect that the usage might flow out of trying to passive tense.
Substitutions I might use:
- (can be | is) described as follows
- fits this description
- may be defined as (though a definition is admittedly stronger than a description)
- has been defined as (followed by citations, if the work is not original)
