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In the sentence below, what does "to corrupt" mean? Do the two infinitives modify something? I find it extraordinary that the state politicians on both sides have somehow decided that this is in the interests of Sydney, New South Wales or Australia to corrupt the way the Opera House works, to corrupt the art integrity of the building.

Answers · 4

1
If you corrupt the way something works, you are deviating it from its original objective. So maybe before the opera house worked to produce beautiful musical works; Now, it serves as a tool to maximize government revenues.
0
Mustafa’s definition of “to corrupt” is good. Grammatically, I’m not sure if it is correct to say that “to corrupt” modifies anything. If you reversed the order, the grammatical structure may be more clear to you: [To corrupt the way the Opera House works] [is not] [in the interests of Sydney]. You may recognize this a a simple [noun/noun phrase] [to be verb] [predicate adjective] sentence, similar to “The car is red.”

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