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I saw the following example sentence in a TOEFL preparation book:

To prevent frostbite, those exposed to extreme cold are advised to wiggle their fingers and toes to increase blood circulation.

But shouldn't it be "To prevent... those who are exposed to extreme cold..."? Am I misunderstanding?

tchrist
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anniey799
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2 Answers2

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It is perfectly good grammar to use 'those + past participle' e.g. those exposed, those affected, those returned, those understood, those finished etc

'Those finished may leave.' 'Those understood to have been in contact with the victim will be interviewed.' 'Those affected have my sympathy.'

It is also perfectly correct grammar to say 'Those who have finished may leave'.

The latter may in certain situations supply better clarity and if it is being used for the first time may be better. But in your example what you have said is the normal correct usage.

WS2
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    To me, “Those finished may leave” does not work. It jarred when I first read it, though it took a moment to figure out why. With verbs that can be both transitive and intransitive (as ‘finish’ and ‘affect’), these auxiliary-free participle seem to force themselves into a passive sense (i.e., the elided auxiliary is ‘be’, not ‘have’). In this example, though, ‘have’ is required. “Those finished” to me means “those who are finished”, rather than “those who have finished”. In a different context, the phrase on its own could work fine; e.g., a recipe: “Shape the pieces of dough into [cont’d] – Janus Bahs Jacquet Dec 07 '13 at 13:17
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    [cont’d] little swans and adorn them with hats and glitter. Place those finished on a glass plate and smash them with a hammer.” (Perhaps not a very good recipe—thankfully, this is not Baking.SE!) – Janus Bahs Jacquet Dec 07 '13 at 13:22
  • I'm not sure that have is possible even with verbs that can only be intransitive. Things like "those fallen" work because "fallen" is an adjective. But you can't say something like: *Those slept will man the watchtowers tonight. – Peter Shor Dec 07 '13 at 14:42
  • @PeterShor Isn't this because this past participle which we are discussing is to all intents an adjective, qualifying 'those'? Some verbs are not used adjectivally, 'sleep' being one. Whilst one encounters 'infected patients', or 'returned passengers', or 'fallen women', even'tired people', one never hears of 'slept people'. So it seems the principle here works only with verbs which can be used adjectivally. That is until someone thinks of an example and proves me wrong! – WS2 Dec 07 '13 at 21:16
  • @PeterShor You can of course speak of a 'sleepy person' but that is a quite different thing. – WS2 Dec 07 '13 at 21:17
  • @Peter, at first I came up with an example using ‘disappear’ (“A memorial was erected in honour of those disappeared”), but then I realised that ‘disappear’ does work, if not very commonly, as a transitive verb, too—and I started trying to figure out if ‘those disappeared’ had intransitive or transitive meaning, or even made sense. And then my brain imploded and I decided to leave it out of the comment altogether. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Dec 07 '13 at 22:53
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Both of the original phrases are grammatically correct. While "those who are exposed to extreme cold" is the complete formulation, the shorter phrase is also correct, but only because the omitted relative, "who are", is a legitimately specific implication (i.e., can be inferred with NO ambiguity).

Regarding the supplied examples, M.Jacquet's analysis of "Those finished may leave" is precise: The sentence is abominable.

Henry Johnson
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