Sentence - During our limited experience we find that while the contents of a constitution are important, more importantly is the spirit of the men at the top who operate it.
Q1: "During" sounds odd to me because of the word "limited". What say u?
Q2: Can I change it to "From our limited experience", anyway?
Q3: Is "more importantly" used correctly if not at all in this context?
Thanks.
I can't exactly fault the original on grammatical grounds but it does sound kind of strange, I'd change it to "From ..."
Because "the spirit ..." is a noun phrase "more imortantly" doesn't fit. A spirit can't be importantly. It can be important. What would be better is "more important". I think, however, that "what's more important" sounds more natural.
Shoot. I'm going to get hell from my students. They're lawyers by the way.
I thought perhaps with "while Y are important, more importantly is X" as opposed to "X is more important than Y". Hmmm...still no? Maybe yes?
Here is how I'd rewrite this:
Although our experience is limited, we find that while the content of a constitution is important, even more important is the spirit of those at the top who enforce it.
Yes. That sounds good. Much better.
Raisingfink,
Just out of curiosity, where are you from?
So, mjd. What time is it there? It's 10.19 am here and I'm at work. Bored out of my brains.
Hang on..can anyone help me. I am terrible with prepositions. Can we make do without the "with" in this sentence -
"...unwilling to provide him with adequate care, food and shelter". Is this ok - "...unwilling to provide him adequate care..."??
Nah, I'd stick with the "with."