I just read a sentence:
Three things in life that, once lost, hard to build up.
Can I rewrite it as:
Three things in life that are once lost hard to build up.
Is my sentence correct?
What are the functions of commas?
commasellipsis
I just read a sentence:
Three things in life that, once lost, hard to build up.
Can I rewrite it as:
Three things in life that are once lost hard to build up.
Is my sentence correct?
What are the functions of commas?
Best Answer
I think there is a word missing in the sentence, but not the one you think it is.
I would expect
Once lost is a "small clause", equivalent to once they are lost; it is also common enough to qualify as an idiom.
Note also that this is not a full sentence, since everything after "that" is a subordinate clause. The full form would be
The writer is using an informal style, where they have left out the "There are". But I don't think anybody would leave out the later "are" in speech: I think this is just a mistake.