[Grammar] There are many units by which to measure the impact of climate change.

[wotcha]

"There are many units by which to measure the impact of climate change."


Does the above sentence grammatical?

 

[Rover_KE]

"There are many units by which to measure the impact of climate change."


Is the above sentence grammatical?

Yes.

Rover

 

[Barb_D]

However, I wonder if "metrics" might not be a better choice than "units."

 

[wotcha]

Yes.

Rover

Then is it possible to change 'by which' to 'where'?

 

[bhaisahab]

Then is it possible to change 'by which' to 'where'?

No.

 

[Rover_KE]

However, I wonder if "metrics" might not be a better choice than "units."

I'd never heard of that use of metrics, Barb, but I looked it up and saw that it might be a possibility.

I'm not sure many people would understand it, though.

Rover

 

[wotcha]

There are many units by which to measure the impact of climate change. -> by which???

There are many units by which to measure the impact of climate change

I wonder why we need 'by which' in the above sentence.

I understand the sentence as 'There are many units to measure the impact of climate change'.


Is 'by which' a 'preposition + relative pronoun' in the sentence?

If then what is the precedence of which?


Please help.
​

 

[Chicken Sandwich]

Re: There are many units by which to measure the impact of climate change. -> by whic

NOT A TEACHER

The most important thing is that you understand it correctly. I don't know if I can explain it well, but "which" refers back to "units". "By" is used because you measure something by something. Education shouldn't be measured purely by examination results. (Source: Longman).

 

[SoothingDave]

However, I wonder if "metrics" might not be a better choice than "units."

I agree that some other word should be chosen. "Units" when used with "measure" seems to refer to the units of measure (e.g. inches, millimeters, furlongs).

 

[wotcha]

Re: There are many units by which to measure the impact of climate change. -> by whic

NOT A TEACHER

The most important thing is that you understand it correctly. I don't know if I can explain it well, but "which" refers back to "units". "By" is used because you measure something by something. Education shouldn't be measured purely by examination results. (Source: Longman).

Now I can get this sentence.

'Many units are there to measure the impact of climate change by which ( = by many units) '

I've learned and taught relative pronoun always comes before a clause, so I was pretty much confused

when I first came across the sentence. As Gillnetter said, however, I might understand it

as a new pattern of composition.