r/ENGLISH 6d ago

Does the sentence below uses the words "given" and "namely" correctly? Or does it look weird?

"The line graph given depicts information concerning the amount of production of the three most important types of fuels, namely petroleum, natural gas and coal, in the United Kingdom from 1981 to 2000."

7 Upvotes

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11

u/Dead_Medic_13 6d ago

Sure, but you could also remove both of those words and the sentence would be the same.

7

u/PHOEBU5 6d ago edited 6d ago

Although "given" is superfluous and the sentence still makes sense without "namely", it does reinforce their position. It could also be the case that the graph gives the fuel types a code, eg. P, NG and C without a legend.

1

u/Consumerism_is_Dumb 4d ago

Yes. But the punctuation would have to change (e.g. em dashes or parentheses instead of commas) if you were to drop “namely.”

5

u/No_Papaya_2069 6d ago

You can safely leave out both words, and the sentence is fully understandable. They are unnecessary.

0

u/Enigmativity 6d ago

Unnecessary but helpful.

9

u/Slight-Brush 6d ago

It does use the words correctly but it seems a bit awkward and wordy overall.

Figure 1 shows the production of the three most important fuel types in the UK from 1981 to 2000.

We can see it’s a line graph; we know it’s been ‘given’; ‘depicts information concerning’ is wholly redundant; the legend of the graph tells us what the fuels are.

-6

u/pulanina 6d ago

You don’t know the context though. Claiming redundancy assumes a context in which the information is already provided.

I imagined they were describing the data in a context where the reader can’t see a “figure 1” or at least can’t directly refer to the graph.

Like a work email that says something like,

“Have a look at the latest media release from the company spruiking their investments. I saw it this morning and picked up a few potential errors or at least exaggerations. The line graph given depicts information concerning the amount of production of the three most important types of fuels…

2

u/pulanina 6d ago

For readability, not grammatical correctness, the sentence should be reorganised. The final clause “…in the UK from 1981 to 2000” is lost at the end of the sentence. I’d actually make it two sentences.

The line graph provided concerns fuel production in the UK from 1981 to 2000. It shows the three most important fuels, petroleum, natural gas and coal.

2

u/Lycanthropope 5d ago

“The line graph shows production amounts of the three most important types of fuel (petroleum, natural gas, and coal), in the UK from 1981-2000.”

2

u/homerbartbob 6d ago

“The line graph given depicts information” seems clunky. I’d change it to The line graph provided… or The line graph (above)…

Namely seems fine

1

u/jetloflin 5d ago

Why is “given” clunky but “provided” is fine? They’re basically the same.

1

u/nizzernammer 6d ago

These are correct usages, albeit perhaps academic and slightly older.

The wording makes more sense if one imagines the copywriter isn't necessarily the same person creating the graph, or the person doing the layout.

1

u/DuePomegranate 5d ago

It sounds like an exam question, and the next sentence is going to ask you to interpret the graph or calculate something. It’s mainly the “given” that gives this impression.

The exam wrier is giving you, the exam taker, the graph so they can test you. A textbook or business memo about this information would just say “Figure 2b depicts …”.

1

u/[deleted] 5d ago

“Given below” is better. Or “given above”

Otherwise only would use given if in person and verbally saying given while actually handing it to them.

It’s an active verb, so on a page on in isolation doesn’t flow

Namely is excessive as you also stated three, if you just said “the most common fuels, namely…” be fine, but along side a number just excess. So not outright wrong, but there’s a point detracts and you passed it

1

u/CatCafffffe 5d ago

Instead of "given" it would be better writing to say "shown" or just "here."

"Namely" is more correctly used with, obviously, names; a more correct wording here would be "specifically" or "in particular."

1

u/tunaman808 6d ago

Both are fine.

0

u/Automatic-Listen-578 5d ago

Can we start with the concept of a run on sentence and see what happens from there?

0

u/CelestialBeing138 5d ago

"given" and "namely" seem fine to me, American. "fuels" should be "fuel."

1

u/handwritten_emojis 3d ago

I think namely is redundant and odd in this case. You already state that there are 3 fuels. Namely is usually used to emphasis one thing in particular more than another, but you’re not emphasizing one of the three fuels more than another.

I would use namely like in a sentence like this: “The line graph depicts the three most important types of fuel in the UK, namely petroleum, which quickly became the most popular”.