be ranked as... vs. rank as... (2025)

Hi,

I have a couple of questions:

According to dictionaries, the verb "rank" can be either transitive or intransitive, but my questions are:

Q1. Which of the following sentences -- (a) and (b) -- is more commonly used? Are both always interchangeable?

(a) "Reese Witherspoon ranks as one of the

actresses..."

(b) "Reese Witherspoon is/has been ranked as one of the..."

Q2. Is the hyphen between highest and paid always necessary?

I'd appreciate it if you could help me.
Thanks!
-sus4

sus4 said:

Hi,

I have a couple of questions:

According to dictionaries, the verb "rank" can be either transitive or intransitive, but my questions are:

Q1. Which of the following sentences -- (a) and (b) -- is more commonly used? Are both always interchangeable?

(a) "Reese Witherspoon ranks as one of the

highest-paid

actresses..."

(b) "Reese Witherspoon is/has been ranked as one of the..."

Q2. Is the hyphen between highest and paid always necessary?

I'd appreciate it if you could help me.
Thanks!
-sus4

Click to expand...

Q1
Sentence A is active and B is passive. You can use either. Advice these days often favours the active construction. However, you can 'pass the buck' by using the passive construction because the agent is someone else and not you.

Q2
The hyphen is used to clear up any ambiguity. The phrase highest paid actresses means the highest of several paid actresses whereas highest-paid actresses means those that are in the high pay bracket. In the former it is not clear what highest means (above the ground?).

I also think that sentence a is more commonly used.

If you didn't want to use highest paid it would sound better to say most highly paid.

Welcome to the forums!

Sentence b) suggests that a formal list has been drawn up to which the author/speaker is referring.

Sentence a) suggests that the author/speaker believes that Reese Witherspoon is one of the highest-paid actresses (based on personal knowledge or intuition (possibly, but not explicitly, because s/he's read a formal list)).

...in my opinion.

I agree with the others about the second question and also prefer to have a hyphen between 'highest' and 'paid', because sometimes it's important for understanding the meaning:

A deep-blue lake is a lake that's coloured dark shade of blue and may or may not be shallow.
A deep blue lake is a blue lake that's not shallow.

In your sentence, you're in luck because the meaning of the sentence without the hyphen is so implausible we automatically go with the intended meaning. But you can't always predict how people will read you, so it's best not to leave any possibility for ambiguity.

One of the highest-paid actresses means one of those actresses that receive the most money for their work.
One of the highest paid actresses first of all divides all actresses into those who are paid (like Reese Witherspoon and everyone else in Hollywood) and those who are unpaid (like my two-year-old daughter when she wants something from me). It then ranks the first group according to how 'high' they are:
- Reese is one of the highest paid actresses because she's half way up a ladder.
- Julia Roberts is also one of the highest paid actresses because she's sitting on a bar stool.
- Susan Sarandon, however, is sitting cross-legged on the floor. She's not even in the ballpark.

As you can see, scenario B is nonsensical enough that we can dismiss it in favour of scenario A, even without the hyphen. But I would still write it with a hyphen (just in case...).

Thank you all for answering the questions! I first thought the hyphen was necessary, but after googling "the highest paid...," I found out lots of people use no hyphen for the phrase. So, I got confused.

Again, thanks for your help!
-sus4

I think this distinction between (a) and (b) is probably up there already, but just to be sure.

In (a) the writer is definitely making a positive statement about ReeseW's income.

In (b), the writer could follow with detailed statements about the way in which the PR machinery has manipulated the situation and then reveal that in fact ReeseW has always worked for a small daily ration of cheese and chocolate.

This is the headline of an article:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tra...nks-8th-in-world-in-revised-liveability-index

"Toronto ranks 8th in world in revised liveability index"

How to turn this sentence into a quesion one as to the 8th position?

Is this natural: "what position does Toronto rank in world in revised liveability index?"

JulianStuart said:

At what number is Toronto ranked in the world in a ... Index? Is a possibility. It might produce the answer "8" or it might produce the answer "8th" - what specific answer do you want to hear ?

Click to expand...

I would like to know ways to produce either answer.

Also, does "at what number does Toronto rank in the world in a ... Index?" work instead of passive constuction as shown above?

The discussion I linked to will illustrate the issues for wording questions to get specific answers. You could add to that thread if you need to

Yes - rank can be transitive or intransitive.

I think I would use rank intransitively: "How does Toronto rank <in/on> the world revised livability index?"

I would be content with either of the answers, 'eighth' or 'number eight'.

Cagey said:

I think I would use rank intransitively: "How does Toronto rank <in/on> the world revised livability index?"

I would be content with either of the answers, 'eighth' or 'number eight'.

Click to expand...

One could make a case for the intransitive use for undisputed facts, while the transitive emphasizing that opinions were used, in the transitive usage "livability" is a subjective thought, while area in sq miles is not
Nuance and context, as usual!