English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I'm working on an employee manual and I came across this one: "Our team philosophy is to become the best of which we are capable."
Is this a correct sentence? The point it's trying to get across is clearly that there are all these things of which one is capable and we would like to become only the best of them, so should it be, "to become the best of that which we are capable?"
Simpler:
Our team philosophy is to become the best we can.
(Or, "... we can be.")
Perhaps even simpler:
Our team philosophy is to become the best.
Or more honest:
Our team philosophy is to become the best we can be, knowing that occasionally we'll screw up big time, but hoping that we'll learn from those mistakes and not repeat them, but also knowing that we probably will.
I'd work for a company that was that honest (and had that sense of humour).
Gerger clearly states that the meaning of the statement should convey that the team are capable of doing many things and they wish to be the best at all of them. That is not what the statement is saying and only the lack of punctuation tenuously indicates to it.
I understand the statement to mean that the team are capable at becoming the best, and if that is what they mean, then it should be written:
Our team philosophy is to become the best; of which, we are capable.
To accurately convey the meaning Gerger refers to, it should be:
Our team philosophy is to become the best at that which we are capable of.
======================================================================= This is a proper version : Our team philosophy is to become the best, of which, we are capable.
Some research lead me to this weblink, of which, I am a member.
https://www.englishforums.com/English/OfWhichUsage/xmzck/post.htm
