Learn English – Difference between “shall not exceed XXX” and “may be XXX but not longer”

differencesformality

  1. The candidate's statement shall not exceed two hundred words.

  2. The candidate's statement may be two hundred words but not longer.

I think there is no difference in meaning between these sentences, but I'm uncomfortable with the first one. Can I always use the second one in any case? Or is the first sometimes preferable?

Best Answer

The first way is more succinct and avoids joining parts with "but". It is also more specific as you know that 180 words is acceptable. Written the other way, it is not clear that 180 words is acceptable. Reading it literally, it means that only 200 words is acceptable. It is only when the tailing "but not more" comes along that you guess that less than 200 words is implied. "But not more" is customarily written as "but no more" when referring to a quantity.