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in favor of: which one?

Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:45 pm
by shinyshade
If given the phrase:

"Accepting A in favor of B."

Which are you in favor of? Are you in favor of A? or accepting A and in favor of B as well? What grammar rules make either true?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Re: in favor of: which one?

Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2005 4:06 pm
by nikita
Hello,

I think the phrase has a different meaning. You do something (for example - accept) in favour of something (to support, help, improve it).

Here is what Longman (http://www.ldoceonline.com/) says about it:

Vote/decide in favour of something (=vote or decide to support something)
288 members voted in favor of the ban.


In your sentence, people do something (accept A) in favour of B (to support B). I believe your phrase may be paraphrased as "Supporting B, accept A". Or "In order to support B, please accept A".

Actually, it is quite difficult to speculate about the meaning of a phrase without its context. It would be much easier if we had the whole sentence, or even a paragraph. :)

Cheerio!

Nikita Kovalyov
www.eclecticenglish.com