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“Bob Johnson’s fundraising efforts for John Smith’s campaign were motivated by a desire to seat the best candidate as President.” Does that sentence say that S
by bentley 4y ago
“Bob Johnson’s fundraising efforts for John Smith’s campaign were motivated by a desire to seat the best candidate as President.”
Does that sentence say that Smith is the best candidate? No, it says that Johnson thinks that.
Would it be better if it were reworded to “…were motivated by a desire to seat who he thought was the best candidate as President”? No, that would just be redundant.
Does the original sentence imply that Johnson holds an unbiased, objective opinion of Smith? Of course not. If anything, it implies the opposite!
- mattigames 4y agoIn your example "a desire" is unambiguously "the desire of Bob Johnson", but in your initial comment "a desire" is not part of a sentence or even paragraph that mentions an individual or a group, therefore is likely to make the readers assume the author (in this case you) is the one making the claim (in this case that means assuming you are the one who believes it's the most important document)
- bentley 4y agoWell, you assumed wrong. To make it clearer, I’ve amended “a desire” to “translators’ desire” in the original comment.