What does the following sentence mean? Is it grammatically correct?
He was more understanding of her than of any of the others.
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Sign up to join this communityWhat does the following sentence mean? Is it grammatically correct?
He was more understanding of her than of any of the others.
He was more understanding of her than of any of the others.
The sentence is grammatical, and means that he showed understanding of her, but there are other people involved as well, and he does not show as much understanding of them.
Some confusion may arise because in the second part of the sentence, a part is left out - consider the "full" form:
He was more understanding of her than he was understanding of any of the others.
The sentence structure is comparable to the structure of this sentence:
I received more letters from John than I received from any of my other friends.
In the same way as in your original sentence, I can leave out the repeated part:
I received more letters from John than from any of my other friends.
He was more understanding of her than any of the others.
In this case, it can also mean that the others were less understanding of her. In the same way I can also give my example sentence a double meaning:
I received more letters from John than any of my friends.
Now, I may have received more letters than my friends received from John.