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?
Asked
Active
Viewed 53 times
0
Foreign student
- 805
- 2
- 9
- 17
-
yes to both questions – gotube Sep 22 '21 at 07:00
2 Answers
1
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.
Astralbee
- 100,700
- 2
- 111
- 222
0
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.
jwh20
- 1,410
- 6
- 7
-
2I 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 '21 at 20:12