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Is there any semantic difference between these two sentences? Also, is any of them more "correct" or frequently used than the other?

This problem has been recently addressed by several authors

vs

This problem has recently been addressed by several authors

Amelio Vazquez-Reina
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1 Answers1

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The second is more naturally English. The first feels like an attempt to wrestle the order into grammatical correctness, although it fails. The blackboard grammar version would have been:

This problem has been addressed recently by several authors

Note that the entire verb construct has been neatly drawn together, as if it were a single word in a complex conjugation. Note, too, that it is something you would never hear in spontaneous speech from anyone but a schoolteacher or that curmudgeonly pedant who, quite understandably, has little in the way of company.

bye
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  • In what sense are the other versions not "blackboard grammar"? I’ve not seen any serious descriptions of English grammar, nor met any curmudgeonly pedants, who would label any of these incorrect! (And I’ve met some pretty curmudgeonly prescriptivist pedants over the years.) – PLL Feb 19 '11 at 21:19
  • In the spirit of never splitting infinitives (which English doesn't actually have), there are people who believe that a verb is a verb, no matter how many words it takes to express it. And apparently you've never met my fifth grade English teacher. – bye Feb 19 '11 at 21:27
  • Ah, fair enough — sorry, I misunderstood your use of "blackboard grammar", and thought you were endorsing it as a legitimate idea of grammar. In that case, agreed with what you say :-) – PLL Feb 19 '11 at 21:40
  • @PLL: Agreed; perhaps "blackboard grammar" could be clarified in the answer. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 19 '11 at 22:42
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    Hmm... I thought it was a common-enough phrase. It's certainly clear enough in the circles I move in (and there is not one of us who would say "the circles in which I move" without irony). – bye Feb 19 '11 at 22:54
  • Having an adverb between the auxiliary and past participle is perfectly normal, natural English (and indeed common in other languages). I think if you start going down the road of proscribing that, then you're going to find something to moan about with practically any sentence of English. There are also cases, e.g. "He was quickly forgiven", where it's hard to see where else you'd put the adverb but between the auxiliary and past participle-- it really is just where it goes in English in this type of utterance, and your fifth grade teacher's argument is spurious AFAICS. – Neil Coffey Feb 20 '11 at 00:33
  • Of course it is, but that's the sort of thing that happens when classicists try to apply Latin and Greek grammar to a language like English. It's also why we have the strange idea that "Billy and me went to the store" is wrong when "Guillaume et je sommes allés au magasin" and similar constructs in other living languages are clearly wrong. – bye Feb 20 '11 at 01:46