Wordwizard

a. The chances of event A happening are higher than the combined chances of the other events happening.
b. The chances of event A happening are higher than the combined chances of all the other events happening.

c. The chances of event A happening are higher than the chances of the other events happening combined.
d. The chances of event A happening are higher than the chances of all the other events happening combined.

Which of the above is grammatically correct and meaningful?

The assumption is that we are comparing probabilities of a number of events: A, B, C, D, E,...

The probability of A is higher than the probability of B + the probability of C + the probability of D ....

I don't like (d), and I don't like (c) that much either.

Many thanks.

In speech, and in most informal writing, we would almost certainly employ some form of ellipsis:

• The chances of A happening are greater than all the rest combined.
• The chances of A happening are greater than those of all the rest combined.

Pretty well anything that is more grammatically complete sounds hopelessly stuffy.