Two Grammatical Questions

[Cindy Chen]

I saw two sentences in my book just now, but not sure if they were correct. One of them said” We are sold out of this book.” Was this sentence correct? I would just say “We have sold out of this book” or “This book is sold out (by us).”

The other sentence was “He is so nice; therefore, we like him.” Was anything wrong with this sentence?

Deeply appreciate all of your answers.
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[Willie]

If a shop or store is sold out of a particular product, it has sold all of that product

The store was completely sold out of tuna fish.

The explanation is from online Longman dictionary
http://pewebdic2.cw.idm.fr/

Though "we" is different from a shop or store,
possibly "we are sold out of this book.=we have sold all of the book." is what the author tries to say.
I hope it solves your question.


"He is so nice; therefore, we like him.”
I think grammatically it is right.
"He is so nice. Therefore, we like him" or
"He is so nice and therefore we like him." is also grammatically right.
Which one is better? I am not sure.

I will let you know if I find the answer.

[Cindy Chen]

Hello, Willie, thanks for your answer.

I don't understand this sentence (We are sold out of this book.) because it looks like passive voice. I guess it should be "We sold out of this book" instead of "We are sold out of this book." But like what you say, the author agrees : We are sold out of this book.= We have sold out of this book.

As to the other sentence, the author thinks it is wrong.

He is so nice that we like him. (O)
He is nice; therefore, we like him. (O)
He is so nice; therefore, we like him. (X)

I can not figure out the reason why the third sentence is not correct.


At last, thank you again for sharing your thoughts with me.
Good night.

[Tienhao Shen]

"We are sold out of this book"
is equal to
"This book is sold out"
You can use either of them

Tim

[Tienhao Shen]

He is so nice; therefore, we like him. (X)

I can not figure out the reason why the third sentence is not correct.

Good night.

This sentence is OK.
According to the Collins cobuild dictionary:
"You can also use so in front of adjectives and adverbs to emphasize the quality that they are describing."
An example from the dictionary:
'I am so afraid,' France is thought.

I think the meaning of "He is so nice." is similar to the one of "He is very nice."

[Willie]

I don't understand this sentence (We are sold out of this book.) because it looks like passive voice.

"sold out" itself is an adjective in this situation

check it up on http://pewebdic2.cw.idm.fr/
Type "sold out" in the serch box.
It has detailed explanation.

We are sold out of this book.
= We have sold out all of this book.
=This book is sold out.
=we have sold out this book.

we have sold out of this book.
I feel the "of" there is stange.
Do you agree with it?

[Darren]

He is so nice; therefore, we like him. (X)

I think the author meant that the above sentence is incorrect in proper written grammar.

The use of "so" is quite complicated:
(1) When you use "so" in means the described adjective is up to a certain stage/level (it's like using "how" in a positive/affirmative way). That level is not clearly defined. Additional information must be given to tell the reader "how nice" he is. If you use "very", we know the strength of the emphasis already.

(2) The use of "so" in written English is of a bridging word, rather than an emphatic word. So, "very" does not equal "so" in written English (in spoken English they do equal each other). Therefore, when a "so" is added into a sentence, that sentence becomes incomplete.


For example:

He is so nice that we like him.
sentence break-up = He is nice. How nice? Nice enough for us to like him.
他人好到我們都喜歡他


He is very nice; therefore, we like him.
sentence break-up = He is very nice. We like him because of it
or We like him because he is very nice.
他人很好;所以我們喜歡他


He is so nice; therefore, we like him.
sentence break-up = He is nice. How nice? We like him because of it.
This sentence does not describe the "How nice" part.
他人好到;所以我們喜歡他
there's a missing phrase after 好到.
There's no description of how nice is he (好到什麼程度).