What does "has done good X" mean?

Hi, Andrew,

@Andrew Van Wagner posted:

Bob makes—in a 2022 interview with an organization that I happen to find extremely problematic but that I think has done good interviews—some insightful comments.

With such a short predicate, the parenthetical looks never-ending. I imagine you then go on to specify the comments, but I'd try to keep "makes some insightful comments" together.

As regards the parenthetical, I don't like the repetition of interview/interviews. Now, combined with the present perfect "has done," I don't think that "some" (which I find better than the zero article) would sound as if all the interviews have been good.

I agree with Gustavo on both counts. As I indicated in this thread, which concerned basically the same sentence, having a parenthetical that separates the verb from its direct object with over twenty words is grotesquely awkward.

Regarding the "some versus all" problem, "some" does naturally lead to the "some" interpretation! The statement that he has done some good interviews can mean that some of the interviews that he has done are good.

The fact that the same statement can alternatively mean that the interviews that he has done are some good ones, indicating the "all" interpretation (as I explained in this other thread), does not discount the natural interpretation.

That said, Andrew, if you really want to render the "all" interpretation impossible, you could revise to this: "an organization that I happen to find extremely problematic but some of whose interviews I think are good."

There is obviously NO WAY to interpret the statement that one thinks that some of an organization's interviews are good as meaning that one thinks that all of that organization's interviews are good!