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> "Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa are also experiencing much more obesity than underweight, the study said." Is this English?
by hilux 3y ago
> "Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa are also experiencing much more obesity than underweight, the study said."
Is this English?
- Scoundreller 3y agothey dug themselves in a hole because there isn't a great choice of antonym for obesity. Slender? Skinny? Slim? Fit?
- joegibbs 3y agoSomething like “underweightness” makes more sense. You are weightless, you have weightlessness. You are underweight, you have underweightness.
- someotherperson 3y agoProbably some weird text replacement that expanded the acronym MENA into "Middle East and North Africa"
- fritzo 3y agoDoubleplus clearly Newenglish
- delecti 3y agoYes, just a bit jargon-y. "Middle East and North Africa" is one region for the purposes of the study, so it's proper that it has an "and" both in the middle and before it. And I haven't seen "underweight" used as a condition noun the same way "obesity" (rather than an adjective), but that tracks too, and doesn't seem to be too uncommon. Both of those constructions are also used in the linked Lancet paper. Swapping out terms, a similar sentence could be "Lilliput and Blefuscu are also experiencing much more cooties than vampirism, the study said." and that sounds entirely reasonable to me.
- firecall 3y agoIt's the 'much more' fragment of the sentence that reads awkwardly for me!
- paulddraper 3y ago1. Usually underweight is and adjective, but it is also a noun. [1] 2. Two "and"s are odd, but "Middle East and North Africa" are frequently grouped together. (Lots of ethnic, cultural, religious similarities.) [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/underweight https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/underweight