1

Is it correct to say:

He is more interested in video games than his girlfriend.

Or should it be:

He is more interested in video games than his girlfriend is.

If we omit the is, is the first sentence ambiguous? Could it mean:

He is more interested in video games than in his girlfriend.

And if we want to say

He is more interested in video games than in his girlfriend.

where should we put the word more? Before interested or after interested?

1
  • 2
    There's an old joke: Linguists like ambiguity more than most people.
    – user230
    Mar 30, 2018 at 21:00

1 Answer 1

3

Yes, this sentence is ambiguous out of context.

He is more interested in video games than his girlfriend.

We don't know whether video games interest him more than his girlfriend does, or if she likes video games less than he does. And we don't know this because native speakers use this construction to mean both things; we cannot judge the statement per se; we must judge it in terms of what speakers want it to mean.

To make it clearer:

He is more interested than his girlfriend in video games.

or

He is more interested in video games than his girlfriend is.

or if that is not your meaning and you want to say he finds games more interesting than her:

He is more interested in video games than in his girlfriend.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .