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I'm confused by the construction "the team was and continues to be doing something".
I'd simply say "the team has been doing something". But the sentence is meant to point out the persistence of doing an action.
Should the original construction be corrected to say "the team was and continues doing something"?
Word Crawler
Posted 2020-05-28T17:12:05.247
Reputation: 11
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the team was and continues to be winning" =
The team was winning and continues winning.
That is the formal construction here. [I added right for it to make better sense.]
The original could use some improvement. The "to be doing" is somewhat clunky. A simpler sentence such as the one I provided is better.
Another example:
This type of construction is used for rhetorical emphasis.
Yes, your corrected version is better.
Lambie
Posted 2020-05-28T17:12:05.247
Reputation: 26 929
I don't find that adding "right" is necessary to make better sense. – Micah Cowan – 2020-05-29T03:17:33.657
I edited your question to make it clearer, but I wasn't sure if you made a mistake in the final sentence or not. Did you mean to type and continues doing something or *and continues to be doing something*? – Jason Bassford – 2020-05-28T17:22:51.070
Thanks for editing. In the last sentence, I meant to type continues doing something – Word Crawler – 2020-05-28T17:25:59.183
1Great. I made a further correction. Feel free to rephrase anything I got wrong. – Jason Bassford – 2020-05-28T17:34:07.523
1Without knowing what the 'something' is it's hard to be certain, but I imagine it is intended to emphasise the fact that the activity has been going on for some time and still is. – Kate Bunting – 2020-05-28T18:31:07.710
The "was and continues" version brings to mind a scenario where the speaker is defending against criticism. For example, "why wasn't your team doing something about it?" It emphasizes both that something has been in progress both at some point in the past, and that it also continues to be done. But if such emphasis is unwarranted, then "the team has been doing something" is the more straightforward way to express it. – Micah Cowan – 2020-05-29T03:20:14.733
The construction wasn't meant to defend against criticism but rather to praise the team. The original "the team was and continues to be contributing to building professional journalism in our country" sound clunky to me. – Word Crawler – 2020-06-02T14:34:59.283