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Me and my colleages have found ourselves disagreeing about the correctness of the following sentance.

"The high shear stress induced can lead to cell damage."

Is the word induced used correctly here? What is the grammar rule at play for induced? I do realise that this structure is a bit uncommon.

According to @Edwin Ashworth, this is an example of a reduced relative clause. Although there are other questions on reduced relative clause, none have investigated the use of induced specifically.

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    It's often seen as a reduced relative clause, here 'short for' which is induced, and non-defining.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Apr 27, 2020 at 11:57
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    "Induced" modifies "stress", and it's "stress" that "can lead" (pronounced "leed" and meaning "cause movement in a direction").
    – Hot Licks
    Apr 27, 2020 at 12:50
  • @Edwin can you please elaborate?
    – Squabbles
    Apr 27, 2020 at 16:20
  • @Hot Licks In this sentance, "lead" is a synonym to "result".
    – Squabbles
    Apr 27, 2020 at 16:24
  • none have investigated the use of induced specifically. - that is because the general principle has been discussed. The actual verb is irrelevant.
    – Greybeard
    Apr 29, 2020 at 8:30

1 Answer 1

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To induce is to simply cause something to happen as a result of some "other" thing happening. For eg., from the realms of Physics we understand that "the current in the primary winding is induced by the rotating magnet".

So here,

Rotating magnet -> Causing event

Current -> Induced event

Coming to the sentence in question : If the intention was to highlight the cause of cell damage, the sentence could be framed as - "The high shear stress can induce a cell damage"

However, if the intention was also to convey that the 'high shear stress' itself was a result of some "other" event, or in other words - 'an induced high shear stress', then the sentence in question is perfectly fine, probably with a comma between 'induced' and 'can lead'.

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  • The meaning of "induced" is mostly irrelevant, since it is modifying "stress", and that's what "can lead".
    – Hot Licks
    Apr 27, 2020 at 14:13
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    And it needs to be noted that "induced", in this usage, strongly suggests that some stress-inducing factor was described in the preceding text.
    – Hot Licks
    Apr 27, 2020 at 16:56

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