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My question is whether the second was is necessary or optional, and why?

As my condition stabilized, I was transferred to a different wing of the Hospital, and was gradually weaned off of the medication.

MetaEd
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b_archer
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    Necessary here, no. Preferable? I'd say so. With a shorter gap ('I was refused entry and told to go home') I'd say omission of the second 'was' is normally preferable. But this can make it more difficult to discern the structure with long separations. Sometimes, omission is unacceptable because it would give rise to ambiguity: 'He was bereaved in his twenties and left the house'. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 23 '15 at 19:18
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    It's also "weaned off the medication", not "weaned off of" – Martin Jan 23 '15 at 19:23
  • Sounds right. Conjunction reduction is optional and can apply in order to replicated items, or not. Though once you stop deleting, you can't delete beyond that point: He has been following the Seahawks and the Colts / He has been following the Seahawks and following the Colts / He has been following the Seahawks and has been following the Colts are all OK, but not *He has been following the Seahawks and has following the Colts. – John Lawler Jan 23 '15 at 19:25
  • Although these two things are linked in this particular case, I think it makes sense to avoid ambiguity. Do you know of a good resource that I could refer to for further study on this subject? – b_archer Jan 23 '15 at 19:25
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    Results of search for "conjunction reduction" here. – John Lawler Jan 23 '15 at 19:27
  • Many thanks! @Martin nice catch! I'm correcting someone else's paper, and that hadn't yet occurred to me. – b_archer Jan 23 '15 at 19:29
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    @Martin - "weaned of of" sounds better in certain circumstances to me (I'm a doc). It is also common enough in journal (professional) articles: "completely weaned off of immunosuppression", "being weaned off of prednisone", "weaned off of CPB", "weaned off of ventilation", "weaned off of milrinone", etc. It's a bit more idiomatic, but to correct someone so dogmatically is unnecessary. – anongoodnurse Jan 23 '15 at 19:39
  • Regarding "off of", see http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/619/how-can-i-explain-to-people-that-the-phrase-off-of-is-grammatically-incorrect – Barmar Jan 23 '15 at 20:52
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    @JohnLawler cite your other answer as an answer rather than a comment, and I will mark this issue resolved. Thank you all for your input! – b_archer Jan 24 '15 at 02:02
  • You're welcome. Just make sure you clean off the verbs before you reuse them. There are some nasty viruses around, especially if you're telling chicken jokes. – John Lawler Jan 24 '15 at 04:00
  • @Edwin: Not entirely on-topic, but you irresistibly reminded me of a sample sentence from my schooldays: "She arrived in a flood of tears and a taxi". – David Pugh Apr 26 '15 at 19:57

1 Answers1

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It's optional.

The general rule for "and" is that the two things coordinated must share all relevant grammatical properties, and the new constituent created has all those shared properties. For the version without "was", we need to compare the properties of "transferred to a different wing of the hospital" and "gradually weaned off of the medication", then we see whether a constituent with all those properties can be put after "was". It can.

For the version with two "was"s, we need to do the similar analysis of the two "was" phrases to find whether the phrase that has all the shared properties (a predicate phrase with "was") is one that can be combined with the subject "I" to make a sentence. And it can.

Greg Lee
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