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My sentence is as follows:

The values of the functions f and g are both 1 if ~~~ is equal to 100 and ~~~ is equal to 300, respectively.

Can the above sentence be shortened as follows?

The values of the functions f and g are both 1 if ~~~~ is equal to 100 and ~~~ 300, respectively.

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    I think you might have to give us the whole versions of the sentences, because it's hard to tell if they make sense if we don't know what goes in the blanks.
    – stangdon
    Commented Mar 27, 2018 at 13:52

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Neither sentence makes sense. In the first, you don't need the word respectively. The second is just meaningless.

Since you used the same thing (~~~~~~~~~~~~~) to refer to two different variables, I will use A and B instead.

I believe you're trying to shorten it to something like:

The values of the functions f and g are both 1 if A and B are equal to 100 and 300 respectively.

In the first sentence, you already make it clear that A equals 100 and B equals 300, so you don't need respectively.

In the second sentence, you're saying that A is both equal to 100 and 300. This makes no sense, and the word respectively has no use there, it shouldn't be there at all.

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  • Thank you. In actual my sentence A and B are very long (around five words, e.g., the smallest ~ variable among ~~~s). Hence, I think a form of "A and B are equal to ~~~ " may make people understand difficult. Is there a good way to explain the following sentences compactly (the sentence will be put in formal papers)? The value of the function f is 1 if A=100, and the value of the function g is 1 if B=300.
    – Danny_Kim
    Commented Mar 27, 2018 at 13:22
  • The last sentence of your comment has a different meaning to your original statement. Your comment says that the value of f only depends on A, not B. And the value of g only depends on B, not A. Your original question makes it sound like the values of f and g depend on both A and B. I think what you're trying to convey can be much more easily conveyed with mathematical notation. E.g. f(100) = 1, g(300) = 1.
    – tjp
    Commented Mar 27, 2018 at 13:29
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    Is there a reason why you wish to express the value of a function in words rather than in mathematical notation, which was invented because words are a clumsy way to express mathematical concepts?
    – JeremyC
    Commented Mar 27, 2018 at 14:25

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