Metro-syntactical: "runs through"

Victor Steinbok aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM
Wed Nov 24 02:50:46 UTC 2010


I agree with Dan here. My guess would be that it was an anticipatory
substitution, as "through" shows up in the next clause. I really don't
see how they could /possibly/ have implied skipping a day. I am also
wondering about the use of "Tuesday and Wednesday" with the second
"through"--either the service ends on Tuesday or on Wednesday. It's not
immediately apparent why they would use both.

Normally, Thanksgiving would be on a Sunday schedule, with reduced
service. There have been complaints in the past that, with airline
delays, there is insufficient public transport on winter holidays. So it
is still possible that they have additional service on Thursday as well.
But it's also possible that they do not. Nor do they mention which
service will run on Saturday--normally reduced--or Sunday--normally
reduced even further. So the only information we really have is that
there will be extra service on Wednesday, Friday, apparently Monday, and
Tuesday and Wednesday. The rest is ambiguous, but I don't think it was
intentionally so. Hence my comment above on "through".

     VS-)

On 11/23/2010 4:56 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> At 11/23/2010 04:45 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>> What day is being skipped?
> The Thursday of Thanksgiving, on which people do not travel as much
> by air as on Wednesday and Friday.  The Tuesday and Wednesday of the
> second part are presumably in the following week.  It's not
> immediately apparent whether the intent was to say "extra service on
> all days from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving through the following
> Wednesday, except Thanksgiving Day itself."
>
>> I think they mistakenly used the word
>> "through" to mean "on".
> Very possibly a misuse of "through" when "on" would be spot-on.  But
> still, they said "through", and twice in the same sentence with what
> must be two different meanings.  And why say "through *Tuesday and*
> Wednesday"?  "Through Wednesday" seems sufficient -- unless Friday,
> Saturday, Sunday, and Monday are also days without extra service.
>
> Joel

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