ashmit99 wrote:
How would you choose between A and B?
Thanks in advance!
Even the best version of this sentence is not great.
A stone recorded something? How would a stone record an encounter? Even worse, (A) uses "was said to have recorded," as if the stone is know to have, at one point in time, actively recorded the encounter. Did the stone then read the recording out loud?
So, initially, I thought (B) to be the better choice, because at least (B) says just "recorded" without going totally off the wall with "was said to have recorded."
I figured that "was said to record" was being used to express something along the lines of "was said to show the record of." So, the beginning of (B) seems reasonable, sort of, with that interpretation.
However, continuing along in the (B) version, we see that it falls apart. Notice what the (B) version says.
the Kensington Rune Stone ... was said to record an encounter ..., thus being cited as evidence
In this type of context, "thus" means that by doing one thing, the stone also did another.
So, this version conveys the nonsensical meaning that, by being "said to record an encounter" the stone was "being cited as evidence."
A stone would not be cited as evidence by being said to record something. So, in the (B) version, this already sketchy sentence becomes unbearably insane.
So, since the (C), (D), and (E) versions aren't even sentences, we have to go back to (A) and see whether we can justify it.
The (A) version says the following.
the Kensington Rune Stone ... was said to have recorded an encounter ..., and thus was cited as evidence
Hmm. So, I can see what's going on here now. In this version, the writer is using "thus" as "therefore." Notice how logical the sentence would sound with "therefore" where "thus" is.
the Kensington Rune Stone ... was said to have recorded an encounter ..., and therefore was cited as evidence
Of course, the writer wouldn't bother to use "therefore," because then everyone would choose (A). So, the writer used "thus" instead, making the sentence not optimal and, thus, obscuring the fact that the (A) version is the best version.
Anyway, we can see that the (A) version is sort of logical. The stone was said to "have recorded an encounter." I guess that is a sketchy way of saying something along the lines of that it was said that the stone had served as a means of recording an encounter, or maybe what the writer meant is kind of like "the video camera was said to have recorded an encounter," as if, back in the day, a stone would have recorded an encounter the way a video camera does today, though the stone would have needed the help of someone with a hammer and a chisel. Then, we have "and thus was cited as evidence."
So, the meaning conveyed is "it was said that the stone had recorded an encounter (with the help of someone with a hammer and a chisel), and therefore the stone was cited as evidence."
OK, that makes enough sense. The (A) version is the best one. So, we go with it.
Definitely a weird sentence though.
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