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What are the differences between:

  1. It is expected to employ 500 people in the factory.
  2. It is intended to employ 500 people in the factory.

I think the first one means the factory hopes to employ 500 people, and the second one means the factory has a plan to hire 500 people.

Am I right? Does the first one sound natural?

Andrew T.
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Omen
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    It is expected to employ 500 people in the factory is only valid if *it* refers to some contextually-established higher level organization in control of the factory's future (it's *not* the "existential "it" of "It's raining"). But that's not possible with It is intended to employ 500 people in the factory, so your second utterance is syntactically invalid. Badly invalid - all native Anglophones will notice, because that's not the kind of error the natives would make. – FumbleFingers Nov 28 '23 at 14:01
  • Though the answers give a good distinction of what the two should mean I would not be confident that most speakers would make the distinction. They would conflate it with "the factory will probably employ 500 people" as well. – Ross Millikan Nov 28 '23 at 23:56
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    These aren't right. They're not grammatical. Where did you find the example sentences? – Billy Kerr Nov 29 '23 at 11:16
  • I found these sentences in chapter 25, "reporting with passives; It is said that..." from the book called "Advanced Grammar in Use" – Omen Nov 30 '23 at 02:22

3 Answers3

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The meaning is simply the difference between "expect" and "intend". "Expect" is a prediction. "Intend" implies a plan.

Your use of "It" is not correct. You need a proper subject here "The company expects to employ" or "It is expected that the company will employ..."

James K
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  • I agree with your criticism of the original texts, even if it was not solicited. – Mark Morgan Lloyd Nov 29 '23 at 08:50
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    Or maybe "The factory is intended for 500 employees", meaning you might run into logistics issues if you try to operate the factory with less than 500 employees or if you try to cram more than 500 people in the building. – Stef Nov 29 '23 at 12:55
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[1] It is expected to employ 500 people in the factory.

[2] It is intended to employ 500 people in the factory.

This is likely to be about a new plant or company.

[1] means people think/believe the plant/company will employ 500 people in the factory.

[2] is not natural. On the other hand, if we say

[2a] It intends to employ 500 people in the factory.

then it means the plant/company plans/hopes/targets to employ 500 people in the factory.

Back to your interpretation of [1], is expected is different from hopes:

This team is expected to lose the match.

does not mean it hopes to lose the match.

Seowjooheng Singapore
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    I don't know why someone downvoted this. It looks fine to me. – FumbleFingers Nov 28 '23 at 14:03
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    @FumbleFingers My guess is someone felt it didn't address the vague subject problem, but that's not what the question was about, and this answer addresses the actual question nicely. – barbecue Nov 28 '23 at 17:01
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    @barbecue: oic. Well, obviously Seowjooheng has addressed it, so far as is justifiable, with [2] is not natural, followed by a valid version of the utterance. Which is quite sufficient, given that the substance of the question seems to be the difference between expect** and *intend* (with what I think is a very succinct illustration of why *expect* and *hope* aren't always interchangeable, even though it might often seem that they are). Not that there's anything wrong with James's answer, but more than half of it is concerned with that peripheral issue. – FumbleFingers Nov 28 '23 at 17:19
  • "[2] is not natural. On the other hand, if we say" This is a false statement. [2] is a claim that carries with it the assertion that it is the desire of someone that the factory shall employ 500 people which is a legitimate claim. Often when a business is built there are intentions to employ some number of people before the factory actually employs those people. The factory owners may intend to employ 100 people, the community may expect that twice that number is employed erroneously, and it may be that that the number of people actually employed falls in between. – J D Nov 28 '23 at 21:37
  • @JD That doesn’t change the fact that the impersonal construction does not work with intend, and that the passive voice rules out the subject being the company. You can say, “It is intended that [X will happen]” (though it’s somewhat old-fashioned), “It is the intention that [X will happen]”, “Company X intends to [do Y]”, etc., but “Company X is intended to [do Y]” is completely ungrammatical, and “It is intended to [do X]” is at best highly unidiomatic. The same restrictions apply to hope (“It is hoped to do X” doesn’t work). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 29 '23 at 08:03
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Wrong. It is perfectly felicitous and grammatical. Use google to see its usage is frequent. https://ludwig.guru/s/it+is+intended+to – J D Nov 29 '23 at 10:16
  • @JD Wrong. None of those are counter-examples. If you click through to the actual sources, you will see that in every single one of them, the pronoun it has a previously defined antecedent, and the meaning is ‘the intention behind [it] is…’; none of them are impersonal constructions. You could envision a situation where, in describing some company project, you say, “The project is not intended to improve working conditions; it is intended to create 500 jobs in the factory” – but even here, employ would not work, since it’s the company that employs, not the project. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 29 '23 at 10:40
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    I just realised there’s rather an important word missing in my first comment: it should say, “… and impersonal ‘It is intended to [do X]’ is at best highly unidiomatic”. The specification to impersonal constructions was crucial: passives like these do not idiomatically support it-extrapositioning (with to-infinitives as subject), but can of course work when it is a semantic subject. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 29 '23 at 11:10
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    @JanusBahsJacquet Ah. I see the objection. I misread, and concede the point. – J D Nov 29 '23 at 13:55
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At the level of that Question, there is no relevant difference.

It would be more meaningful to switch either from 'It is expected/intended to employ 500 people in the factory' to the rather different 'It is expected/intended that 500 people (might/will) be employed in the factory.' Does that much make sense?

Only after that, the first might mean the factory hopes and the second that the factory has a plan to hire 500 people, but any real certainty would depend on more details than were Posted.

Robbie Goodwin
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