Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 April 13

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April 13

Stopped her (from) doing it

How could one explain the difference between:

• A.I stopped her doing it
• B. I stopped her from doing it?

My sense is:

• A means she had started doing it, and I caused her to cease doing it. Either I physically blocked her, or I commanded her to stop doing it (and she obeyed)
• B means I did something that did not necessarily involve our personal interaction but it prevented her from starting to do it at all, such as locking a cabinet and denying her access to the key. It could also mean physically restraining her.

But couldn't the second case also be described using version A? What is the degree of interchangeability of these forms? In the case where she had been digging around inside the cabinet and I removed her from the site and locked the cabinet, I guess I could say "I stopped her doing it, then I stopped her from doing it". Is that a reasonable construction? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:44, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Possibly, but it is best to avoid ambiguous constructions; if you want to say "I removed her from the site and locked the cabinet", then say that. The over-use of pronouns tends to create unnecessary ambiguity, and the more specific sentence is not significantly longer in terms of characters or words; if it takes the same effort to write or say the same thing, and it is less ambiguous, do that instead. --Jayron32 02:18, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Sage advice indeed. Still, I want to know what I asked. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:30, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

A could mean the same as B in sort of a slangy way. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:34, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Rather than random guesses, it would be more accurate to look in a dictionary. For example:

with object and present participle Prevent (someone or something) from performing a specified action or undergoing a specified experience.

‘several attempts were made to stop him giving evidence’

‘you can't stop me from getting what I want’

In the sense of prevent, the two are completely interchangeable, and there is no difference in register. Henry^Flower 13:45, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Actually hearing others say things like that does not qualify as "random guesses", Mr. Blossom. It's akin to saying someone "graduated high school."[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:55, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Except in Br-En, at least, someone wouldn't say that — you can graduate, full-stop; or graduate from something, such as a high school, college, or drinking small measures of beer. Bazza (talk) 16:58, 13 April 2018 (UTC)