5 Sentences with Problematic Parallelism in Lists

5 Sentences with Problematic Parallelism in Lists 5 Sentences with Problematic Parallelism in Lists 5 Sentences with Problematic Parallelism in Lists By Mark Nichol It’s too bad you can’t eat grammatical errors or use them to fill your gas tank, because they’re a cheap, endlessly renewable resource. Here’s a five-course meal of sentences with troublesome structure, starting with dessert. 1. â€Å"The writer will sit, eat, and interview the subject.† It seems more logical for the writer to interview the subject after being seated but before eating him or her, but whatever. If the intended meaning of the statement is that the writer will dine with the subject rather than cannibalistically consume him or her, however, the sentence should be revised as follows: â€Å"The writer will sit and eat with, and interview, the subject.† Better yet, for a smoother flow to the sentence, introduce a pronoun: â€Å"The writer will sit and eat with the subject and interview him [or her].† 2. â€Å"The committee consists of the executive directors of the Bay Area Toll Authority, California Transportation Commission, and California Department of Transportation.† Normally, items in a list can share an article (â€Å"the birds, bees, flowers, and trees†), or each can have its own (â€Å"the birds, the bees, the flowers, and the trees†), but when the list items are proper nouns, it’s best to assign an article to each one so that it doesn’t appear that the entities after the first one are erroneously referred to without an article: â€Å"The committee consists of the executive directors of the Bay Area Toll Authority, the California Transportation Commission, and the California Department of Transportation.† 3. â€Å"His contribution to the interior design of the home is his impressive antique musical instruments and modern art collection.† The statement implies that the collection consists of antique musical instruments and modern art, but technically, the reference should be to two distinct collections, described in the plural form and with each description preceded by its own plural pronoun: â€Å"His contributions to the interior design of the home are his impressive antique musical instruments and his modern art collection.† Alternatively, the sentence could be revised as follows, with the collections referred to as a single contribution or a pair of contributions: â€Å"His contribution(s) to the interior design of the home is (or are) his impressive collections of antique musical instruments and modern art.† 4. â€Å"The organization promotes sustainable landscaping practices, green building-construction methods and products, and minimizing pesticide use in the home.† The inconsistency of syntax here is that the first two items are modified with adjectives, while the third is described as an action. Change the verb in the final item to an adjective: â€Å"The organization promotes sustainable landscaping practices, green building-construction methods and products, and minimal pesticide use in the home.† Alternatively, introduce verbs into each of the other items: â€Å"The organization promotes employing sustainable landscaping practices, utilizing green building-construction methods and products, and minimizing pesticide use in the home.† 5. â€Å"Here come the summer movies- the usual formulaic action flicks, dumb comedies, and sequels.† This sentence is not wrong, but the rhythm is off because the first two items are preceded by adjectives but the final element is a bare noun. Introduce an adjective before that item for parallel structure: â€Å"Here come the summer movies- the usual formulaic action flicks, dumb comedies, and weak sequels.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:30 Synonyms for â€Å"Meeting†One Fell SwoopApostrophe with Plural Possessive Nouns