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The supplier sent my raw material 250 kg short.

You paid your debt a hundred dollars short.

Is the use of “short” grammatically correct? I mean can these sentence be understood by a native speaker?

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  • yes to both questions
    – gotube ♦
    Sep 22, 2021 at 7:00

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They are almost right, but not quite. They would be understood, but they are not idiomatic.

"Short" is used as an adjective to describe a thing that is not adequate in quantity. In both your examples, it appears as if you are using it as an adverb - in example 1 you effectively say it was sent short, and in example 2 you say it was paid short.

They should really be:

  • The raw materials sent by the supplier were 250 kg short.

  • The payment for your debt was a hundred dollars short.

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Yes, those sentences are both grammatically correct and would be commonly understood by a native speaker in the USA at least.

You could also use some variations of this if you wanted to:

The supplier shorted me 250 kg in the latest shipment.

Your payment is one hundred dollars short of what you owe me.

But I don't believe I could say that my suggestions are any better or clearer than what you wrote.

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    I disagree a bit; while the original sentences are understandable, as a US native speaker I find them odd and non-fluent, particularly the first one, and marking the speaker as not native.
    – stangdon
    Sep 21, 2021 at 20:12

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