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The water of the sea was warm enough for them to swim.

hirashin

Sempai
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8 Apr 2004
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Dear native English speakers,
I think (a) is incorrect. What do you think?
(a) The water of the sea was warm enough for them to swim.

If it's incorrect, would (b) sound correct?
(b) The water of the sea was warm enough for them to swim in.

Thanks in advance.

Hirashin
 
A is okay, but "water of the sea" sounds kind of weird, like a direct translation from Japanese, but there's a number of ways to make it sound more natural

The water was warm enough...
The sea was warm enough...
(if it's about the ocean which I think it is) The ocean was warm enough...
The ocean water was warm enough...

I don't think it matters whether or not you say "...swim" or "...swim in", I think both are okay.
 
Depends entirely upon how attached you are to the rule about whether prepositions are something that a sentence can end in.

But I totally agree about "the water of the sea." It sounds incredibly unnatural to me.
 
I wouldn't say incredibly, but yeah, it's not the best word choice. If you replaced "of" with "in", that would be fine. But still, just saying that the sea is warm would be more typical.
 
Thank you for the help, Takichan, WonkoThe Sane, and Julimaruchan.
I'm surprised. I didn't know that both "swim" and "swim in" are all right in that case.

How about these, then? Would all sound OK?
(c) This is a good house to live.
(d) This river is dangerous to swim.
(e) A thousand dollars a month is not enough for me to live.
(f) The pool water is too cold to swim.
 
E and F. D would have been fine if "too" preceded "dangerous":

"This river is too dangerous to swim."

C needs "in" at the end. But if you replaced "house" with "place", that would be fine (and actually quite common):

"This is a good place to live."

I honestly have no idea why, it's just what my gut tells me.
 
Thank you for the further help, Julimaruchan.

Do you mean (e) and (f) are fine?

I knew that you can say "a good place to live/stay/go" etc... In my understanding, "place" is a special noun that doesn't need a preposition after the infinitive.

Can you also say "This river is too dangerous to swim in"?
 
Do you mean (e) and (f) are fine?
Yes.

In my understanding, "place" is a special noun that doesn't need a preposition after the infinitive.
I don't think that's the case. I think it's something about whether or not your can use a generic statement in the given context, because that's what omitting the preposition does. I suspect it's something like "house" being too specific, whereas "place" is more generic. But I'm not sure.

Can you also say "This river is too dangerous to swim in"?
Yep.
 
Hirashin, yes that would be correct as well, both could be used and would mean exactly the same thing
 
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