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In Collins dictionary website, I found an example as follows,
"A report yesterday that said British unemployment would continue to rise."
My question is, Why it is not, "A report yesterday said that British unemployment would continue to rise."
Is the first example with "that said" some kind of writer style? Or it should be the right grammatical way to say that.
Or both sentences are grammatical and usable?
Thanks in advance.
Confusion may arise because both "that said" and "said that" are common phrases; however, their meaning is very different here.
The first example, "A report yesterday that said British unemployment would continue to rise." is not a complete sentence but a phrase describing the report. That is, both "yesterday" and "that said British unemployment would continue to rise" modify "report"; there is no verb to follow. Other examples of restrictive relative clauses following a noun are
A report that addresses recent events
A report that lacks vital information
A report that looks like a five-year-old made it
Your rewording ""A report yesterday said that British unemployment would continue to rise." instead forms a complete sentence, as in the following:
A report said that the bridge is unstable.
A report noted that crime is decreasing.
A report argued that the problem is insignificant.
Here, "that" acts as a conjunction introducing the object of the verb.
