grave vs. grievous

[bartek1988]

Hello,

Could you please help me and say why 'grievous' is the correct answer? Thank you.

The consequences of global warming have grave/grievous impacts for all of us.

 

[tedmc]

Global warming causes people to suffer. Of the two adjectives, only "grievous" is associated with suffering. "Grave" is to do with being serious/dangerous/harmful.

 

[jutfrank]

Who told you that 'grievous' is the correct answer? Where did you get this question from and what was it exactly?

 

[bartek1988]

This is a sentence given by my teacher. Would you then accept both answers? If so, what would the difference be?

 

[jutfrank]

What was your teacher trying to do? Trying to teach you the meanings of these two words by making a sentence in which only one of them makes sense? If that is the case, I don't think the question works well. I wouldn't ask it.

 

[emsr2d2]

Is your teacher a native English speaker? Did they make the question up themselves or take it from a book? As you can see, your post is still flagged with "Waiting for source information". There's not much we can do until we know a bit more.

 

[jutfrank]

I think 'have impacts' is wrong, especially with 'consequences' as its subject. It's a poor sentence either way.

 

[Tarheel]

"WXYZ will have grievous consequences" might work.

P.S. I thought of changing"will" to "would " but then I decided that either would work depending on context. Of course, I could change my mind about that.

 

[tedmc]

I don't think "grievous" goes well with "impact". In fact, it is not a common adjective.

I think consequences don't give rise to impacts; consequences are impacts, both being the outcome of global warming.

 

[bartek1988]

Is your teacher a native English speaker? Did they make the question up themselves or take it from a book? As you can see, your post is still flagged with "Waiting for source information". There's not much we can do until we know a bit more.

Thank you all for the comments. This sentence as a part of a multiple choice exercise was prepared by my teacher who is not a native speaker of English. Altogether there were 4 options to choose from: grave, mournful, grieving and grievous.

 

[emsr2d2]

If you're on good terms with your teacher, maybe you could show him/her this thread!