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Phrase "we came back to believing"



 
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ESL Forum | English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
Words are a life. vs Words is a life. vs Words is a way of life. | Meaning of adjunct
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Phrase "we came back to believing" #1 (permalink) Fri Jul 10, 2009 6:12 am   Phrase "we came back to believing"
 

From http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/business/05corner.html?pagewanted=3&8dpc&_r=1
There was so much good momentum and we were asking all sorts of good questions and launching new, good ideas. But ultimately, they took away resources and energy from the fundamental core of what we do, which we came back to believing was the most powerful thing. The obsession with truly staying focused on our core mission, I think, came from that.

Does we came back to believing equate to we believe? Is it a comment clause and thus parenthetical?

Thanks
Clunker
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we came back to believing #2 (permalink) Sat Jul 11, 2009 0:43 am   we came back to believing
 

It seems to mean that they believed, and then they did not believe, and then they believed again. I don't see it as parenthetical to the text.
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we came back to believing #3 (permalink) Sat Jul 11, 2009 2:08 am   we came back to believing
 

Thank you.
Clunker
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we came back to believing #4 (permalink) Sat Jul 11, 2009 9:33 am   we came back to believing
 

Mister Micawber wrote:
It seems to mean that they believed, and then they did not believe, and then they believed again. I don't see it as parenthetical to the text.


I just want to learn that is such a clause commonly used or necessary to be used to express the concept of what the author means?

I am asking this question since this is the first I have ever run across such a clause or phrase.

Thanks in advance.
Emir
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we came back to believing #5 (permalink) Sat Jul 11, 2009 14:00 pm   we came back to believing
 

Yes, Emir, the phrase is part and parcel of the utterance, to my mind. It defines how they approached their core activity. Grammatically, of course, you can remove the part you are talking about, but then the text says less.
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