[i]Forests come under increasing pressure as the population increases as so many people use firewood for cooking.
Japan is in the lead, producing twice as many industrial robots as the rest of the world combined[/i]
Could you explain as…as in these sentences ?
as - since; because: Forests come under increasing pressure as the population increases, although the whole sentence ( Forests come under increasing pressure as the population increases, as so many people use firewood for cooking.) looks extremely awkward. Second “as” ought to be replaced by “and.”
dictionary.reference.com/browse/as
The expression as…as is used to show the comparison of quantity. twice as many as = two times more than
Wouldn’t you say that “three times as many as” means “two times more than”? I.e. if the rest of the world produces 100,000 robots a year, and Japan twice as many, that should be 200,000. If Japan produces two times more robots than the rest of the world, it produces 300,000.
No, I would not.
“three times as many as” means “three times more than”
As the population increases, forests come under increasing pressure as so many people use firewood for cooking.
What do you think?
As the population increases, forests come under increasing pressure because so many people use firewood for cooking.
Isn’t that separation added by comma enough for us to stick to ‘as’ instead of submitting to ‘because’?
Regardless of the comma second “as” in this sentence does not sound natural. People do not talk like this.
I may be wrong but I thought ‘as’ is a glue here which binds the clauses – ‘As the population increases’, ‘forests come under increasing pressure’ and ‘so many people use…’ more strongly than ‘because’ does. ‘Because’ seems to incorrectly shift the attention to ‘firewood for cooking’.