The weather was better than (it) had been expected.

hirashin

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8 Apr 2004

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• #1

Dear native English speakers,

Would both be correct?
(a) The weather was better than had been expected.
(b) The weather was better than it had been expected.

Thanks in advance.
Hirashin

 

Timelyn

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22 Mar 2016

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• 5 Oct 2016

• #2

I actually say '..was better than expected'

 

Lothor

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• #3

Timelyn said:

I actually say '..was better than expected'

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I would too, but out of the original sentences, the first is correct but the second is not.

 

hirashin

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• #4

Thanks for the help, Timelyn and Lothor.

How about these?
(c) The weather was better than was expected.
(d) The weather was better than we expected.
(e) The weather was better than we had expected.

Hirashin

 

musicisgood

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hirashin said:

Thanks for the help, Timelyn and Lothor.

How about these?
(c) The weather was better than was expected.
(d) The weather was better than we expected.
(e) The weather was better than we had expected.

Hirashin

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D, Seems to catch me in a positive way, especially if it was a test question.

 

hirashin

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musicisgood said:

D, Seems to catch me in a positive way, especially if it was a test question.

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Thanks for the help, musicisgood. Would you prefer "The weather was better than expected" in your conversation?

 

OoTmaster

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I use "The weather was better than expected" in conversation all the time personally. But I also use "The weather was better than we expected" in conversation all the time as well. The second one is used if you both expected the weather to be worse than it was. You can use "The weather was better than (I/we/he/she/they) expected" if you had more than one person that had a view of what the weather would be and disagreed on it.

 

OoTmaster

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23 Oct 2012

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Actually "The weather was better than (he/she) expected" could imply only one person with a view of the weather. I apologize for stating it incorrectly in my post.

 

hirashin

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Thanks for your ongoing help, OoTmaster.