a petition

[Mark Chen]

Hi Teacher

They've started a petition drive collecting signatures to show corporate book dealers that Laredo can support a bookstore.

Can you tell me how to analyze the sentence above?
Is "drive" used as a verb here?

Thank you in advance

Mark

[Mixmixi]

The best way for analyzing a sentence, in my opinion is to re-writing that, then you can put every word back in its palce one by one. For example, first we write: They have started it to show them that he can support a bookstore.
So, here we have a group of people who are trying to show an ability of someone to another group. Then you can put every phrase back in its place to find the details.

Your second question have an answer in my example sentence.

Mixmixi
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[Jamie (K)]

"Drive" is not used as a verb in that sentence. "Petition drive" is a compound noun there.

[Mark Chen]

[Jamie (K)]

A petition drive is an organized event where people try to get as many signatures as possible on a petition. Generally, people do this when they want the public to have an opportunity to vote on a certain proposed law. If they get enough people's valid signatures, the proposal will be put on the ballot and we can vote for or against it. Sometimes we have petitions to put a certain political candidate on the ballot.

In the sentence you gave, people were trying to collect signatures to try to convince large bookstore corporations that the city of Laredo is big enough to have a bookstore. In this case, a petition would be a bit naïve, because the corporations already know from business data whether an area can support a bookstore.

The Merriam-Webster defines "drive" as "a strong, systematic group effort". For example, people organize clothing drives to collect clothes for the poor. Or they might organize a fund-raising drive to collect money for some charity, such as for earthquake assistance or cancer research.

[Mark Chen]

Thank you very much

Mark

[Jamilion]

Good morning Jamie, your way in explanation is really useful.

Thank you.
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