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worldwide

cigogne

Senior Member
Persian
Hi,

I just can't decide where to place "worldwide" in my sentence. Is it right to say:
"Over 30 million tons of NOx are vented worldwide to the earth’s atmosphere every year"

Thanks
Your placement of "worldwide" is perfect. I'd suggest changing one preposition: "...vented worldwide into the earth's atmosphere every year."
Since you say "the earth's atmosphere," do you even need worldwide? My suggestion is that you probably don't.
Owlman and Invictus are both right, but I like Copyright's suggestion better. It is redundant to say worldwide, when you are saying that some amount of a chemical is vented into the atmosphere. It is assumed to be worldwide, unless you specifically say that it is not worldwide (if it were limited to automobile exhaust or applicances in North America or dentists' offices in Europe... 👁 Wink ;)
).
Cypherpunk and Copyright. You guys make a good argument here. It doesn't matter whether you have one source or a million, as long as 30 million tons of NOx are being discharged into the atmosphere. When I hear "are vented worldwide", I tend to think less of the pollution in the atmosphere and more of a great number of different sources doing this simultaneously. So I find some value in the term even though all atmospheric pollution has global effects. At the very least, it helps me form a picture of the idea.
Hello!

I would like to ask another question in relation to the position of "worldwide" in a sentence. I've come across the following sentence ( in a cnn.com article entitled: 'Americans warned about dengue fever cases in Honduras'):

Dengue infections are a worldwide occurrence.​

It sounds OK to me to use the adjective "worldwide" before a noun, as in the example above, or in expressions like "a worldwide phenomenon".

👁 Arrow :arrow:
Can the adjective "worldwide" be used on its own after the verb "to be"? 👁 Confused :confused:
-- for example:

Dengue infections are worldwide. -- The intended meaning here is the same as in the example from the CNN article, that is, the fact that these infections occur all over the world.
​
Maybe this is one of those adjectives that can only be used before a noun? 👁 Confused :confused:


Thank you in advance.
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Worldwide can be an adjective or an adverb.

Dengue fever is a worldwide problem (adjective)
Dengue epidemics are now a regular occurrence worldwide (adverb)
​
As an adjective, it doesn’t always have to be attributive:

It has long been observed that a similar root is also reflected in Chinese, and Sasse (1993) has argued that it is worldwide.
(from Archaeology and Language, 1997)

Although the distribution is worldwide, it occurs most frequently in the tropical and subtropical areas of the globe…
(from Diagnosis & Treatment of Uveitis, 2013)​
Thank you, lingobingo.

In your opinion, does the sentence "Dengue infections are worldwide" sound OK as is? I mean, does it sound as natural to you as "Dengue infections are a worldwide occurrence"?
I’m not comfortable with that particular sentence, but it would work fine with infection (singular).
I’m not comfortable with that particular sentence, but it would work fine with infection (singular).

As in "Dengue fever is worldwide"?

I feel as uncomfortable as you with this type of sentence, but I can't seem to pinpoint what is wrong about it 👁 Confused :confused:
. Any ideas?
You were probably right in the first place, when you suggested that it’s an adjective that can’t be used predicatively. That’s not the whole story, since clearly it can, as per my examples in #8. But somehow, saying that a specific disease “is” worldwide doesn’t work well, whereas applying the same construction to something abstract like a problem or a phenomenon works fine.
Thank you again, lingobingo, for the time and mental effort you are putting into this. I really appreciate it.

I think what you're suggesting about abstract notions seems to make quite a lot of sense -- we may be on the right track here 👁 Smile :)
. For instance, the example sentence you provided in #8, starting "Although the distribution is worldwide...", seems to work because "it" (apparently this refers to uveitis) is distributed across the width of the world -- this is not the most natural way to put it, but I think you know what I mean.

Nonetheless, I still have my doubts that the two examples you provided are highly idiomatic/common. But this is something only a native speaker of English (and a knowledgeable one like you) can throw light on.
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