Hey, after a long time!
Read this quote please: "When those of us who are Christians take part in the Mass or the Holy Communion, we are taking part in a kind of drama, a religious drama... ."
I think either the 'we' implies the author is himself Christian, or it's sloppy writing. Or maybe both? What's your opinion?
BTW, I see no tools of rich text. Have they been eliminated or something's wrong with my browser?
Raffee said
Hey, after a long time!
Read this quote please: "When those of us who are Christians take part in the Mass or the Holy Communion, we are taking part in a kind of drama, a religious drama... ."
I think either the 'we' implies the author is himself Christian, or it's sloppy writing. Or maybe both? What's your opinion?
BTW, I see no tools of rich text. Have they been eliminated or something's wrong with my browser?
Welcome back, Raffee. I think the 'we' is appropriate, especially since he uses 'us' earlier in the quote.
Emmett
I concur that the sentence asserts that the writer is a Christian who takes part in Holy Communion. If that is not so, it is badly written.
It is the "we" that makes it so.
The following rephrase would avoid the assertion.
"Those of us who are Christians and who take part in the Mass or the Holy Communion are taking part in a kind of drama ... ."
Although with this rephrase in isolation the "us" leaves room for an implication of inclusion, it is not necessarily so. It is easy to envision a context in which the context would exclude that possibily.
"I am honored to be a Muslim addressing this esteemed assembly. Those of us who are Christians ... "
I see Raffee's point at top, but for this reason: the mismatching tenses of the verb 'to take' seems to indicate (however only ever so slightly) that the two subjects are not the same.
Conversely, matching tenses, or better, repeated verbs, will strongly indicate that their subjects are same:
When Christians take part in the Mass or the Holy Communion, we do also in a kind of drama, a religious drama…
But the original sentence is actually an idiomatic structure that indicates one activity is implied by the other :
When you vote, you are helping democracy.
When Sue took the city job, she was sacrificing all she had ever known and loved.
Viewed that way, it is clear that the subject is the same person all along.
Raffee, I still see the rich text buttons at top of the edit panel. One time my iPad lost them while the IOS was outdated.