Question I'd like to design houses comfortable for people in wheelchairs to live in

hirashin · 10 Sep 2018

Dear native English speakers,
would both sentences be used?
(a) I'd like to design houses comfortable for people in wheelchairs to live in.
(b) I'd like to design comfortable houses for people in wheelchairs to live in.

Here's a similar sentence from the textbook.
"Universal design means creating a society comfortable for different people to live in."
What do you think?

Hirashin

Buntaro · 11 Sep 2018

Both (a) and (b) can be used.

hirashin said:
"Universal design means creating a society comfortable for different people to live in."

This sentence is correct.

hirashin · 11 Sep 2018

Thank you for the help, Buntaro san. I'm glad to hear both can be used.

OoTmaster · 13 Sep 2018

I would say for these sentences it depends on what you mean by comfortable. The first sentence is more ease of use. You could say in a different way, "I want to design houses that are easy for disabled people to use." The second sentence is comfort in a more literal sense. Such as a comfortable couch. I hope this helps.

hirashin · 14 Sep 2018

Thanks, OoTmaster. So you mean the two sentences are different in meaning?

OoTmaster · 14 Sep 2018

That's correct. One is about ease of use the other is about having comfortable things. With comfortable houses it's an adjective of houses. The other one is a house that is comfortable for the user. When talking of people in wheelchairs it's more likely to be understood as meaning ease of use since it's harder to do certain things in a wheelchair.

Mansoor · 19 Sep 2018

Once, I wanted to design an skate for disabled people who were not able to walk, but I worried, it doesn't work properly and they fall down or accident with people or other things, because the skate could move fast but hadn't any brake or steering tool.

hirashin · 20 Sep 2018

Thanks for the help, OoTmaster. Thanks for the interesting story, Mansoor. I hope those people were not injured.

Mansoor · 21 Sep 2018

Of course I think the origin sentence can be changed into this sentence:

I would like to design houses for people on wheelchair to live comfortable in.

Also, I think the origin sentence has an error too:

"in wheelchair" does mean "into wheelchair" while a wheelchair is hypaethral and hasn't a cabin that somebody can go into it, so I think "on wheelchair" can be correct.

Buntaro · 21 Sep 2018

Mansoor said:
for people on wheelchair

The correct phrase is "for people in wheelchairs".

Mansoor · 21 Sep 2018

Buntaro said:
The correct phrase is "for people in wheelchairs".

Although "on" seems more appropriate than "in", but some irregularities in English language allow replacing these two words.
For example I compare chair with wheelchair. We always say, "He is sitting on the chair", so analogously we should say, Mr. Hawkins is sitting on the wheelchair; because in fact wheelchair is a chair with four wheels and there is not a notable difference between these two types of seat.

joadbres · 21 Sep 2018

Mansoor said:
"in wheelchair" does mean "into wheelchair" while a wheelchair is hypaethral and hasn't a cabin that somebody can go into it, so I think "on wheelchair" can be correct.

I would guess that @hirashin is more interested in learning actual correct English than he is in hearing the speculations of non-native speakers about what they think should be correct English.

Mansoor · 21 Sep 2018

joadbres said:
I would guess that @hirashin is more interested in learning actual correct English than he is in hearing the speculations of non-native speakers about what they think should be correct English.

First of all, you are a very beautiful girl.

Second, your criticizing was severe, unlike your beautiful face.

You humiliated me because I'm not a native English, instead you listen to my logic.

hirashin · 21 Sep 2018

According to Google Ngram Viewer, "in wheelchairs" is used about 28 times as often as "on wheelchairs". I guess "in wheelchairs" is much more common.

mdchachi · 21 Sep 2018

I'm sure you have already realized but you should ignore Mansoor's advice about English. He is not a native speaker. And there are many grammatical errors in his posts. Of course that's no problem for general conversation. But he's not qualified to give advice on the English language.

Buntaro · 21 Sep 2018

joadbres said:
I would guess that @hirashin is more interested in learning actual correct English than he is in hearing the speculations of non-native speakers about what they think should be correct English.

I agree.

Mansoor · 21 Sep 2018

mdchachi said:
I'm sure you have already realized but you should ignore Mansoor's advice about English. He is not a native speaker. And there are many grammatical errors in his posts. Of course that's no problem for general conversation. But he's not qualified to give advice on the English language.

Hi mdchachi

I didn't opine as a certain thing. I said:"I think".
This expresses that I opined based on my personal inference, not as a certain grammatical rule.
Besides, I have an Oxford grammar book here, in my system that study it on and off. But I mostly prefer to complete my English via conversation.

So I request you not to restrict me in such the threads and allow me to speak with others freely. If I had any mistake in one of my viewpoints you or others can deny it reasonably and based on relative rules.

I didn't say to @hirashin that what I say is correct absolutely, I just opined "I think so".

Thank you

mdchachi · 21 Sep 2018

Mansoor said:
Hi mdchachi

I didn't opine as a certain thing. I said:"I think".
This expresses that I opined based on my personal inference, not as a certain grammatical rule.
Besides, I have an Oxford grammar book here, in my system that study it on and off. But I mostly prefer to complete my English via conversation.

So I request you not to restrict me in such the threads and allow me to speak with others freely. If I had any mistake in one of my viewpoints you or others can deny it reasonably and based on relative rules.

I didn't say to @hirashin that what I say is correct absolutely, I just opined "I think so".

Of course! You are welcome to opine freely. I just wanted to let Hirashin know that (in my opinion) he should ignore your opinions about English usage. He's trying to teach English to his students based on native speaker usage and grammatical rules. Please don't take offense.
By the way if you are interested in such things you might want to play around with the Ngram viewer that Hirashin mentioned. You can see for example that "in the chair" is much more common than "on the chair." However "on the bench" is most correct and "in the bench" is never used. So we can conclude that the style of the chair is important to determine whether to use "on" or "in."

Question I'd like to design houses comfortable for people in wheelchairs to live in

hirashin

Sempai

Buntaro

運動不足

hirashin

Sempai

OoTmaster

先輩

hirashin

Sempai

OoTmaster

先輩

Mansoor

Sempai

hirashin

Sempai

Mansoor

Sempai

Buntaro

運動不足

Mansoor

Sempai

joadbres

八方凡人

Mansoor

Sempai

hirashin

Sempai

mdchachi

Moderator

Buntaro

運動不足

Mansoor

Sempai

mdchachi

Moderator

Similar threads