Parallelism - TTP Flashcards
What is the rule related to structure around FANBOYS
Structures built around coordinating conjunction FANBOYS must be parallel. Anytime we encounter one of these coordinating conjunctions, we must be vigilant in ensuring parallelism is properly maintained.
e.g.
In order to succeed at this company, team members must be empathetic and open-minded (Two adjectives after and before and)
Having walked miles almost daily for months, the trekkers were tired, but they would soon be home (Two IC after and before but)
Is the below sentence correct or incorrect?
The dignitaries who had rushed to meet with the prime minister found themselves waiting in a hotel in the capital, for a surprisingly long period of time
The sentence is correct as usual reason being, even though it has used ‘for’, it is not used as a conjunction but as a preposition phrase, so items around it need not be in parallel
List of items that should be parallel.
Items contained in a list are separated by commas and the sentence also uses conjunction, pay close attention to such cases, and all items in the list must be parallel to each other
People today routinely do things previously considered impractical or impossible
The sentence above has two elements in the list impractical and impossible, both of which are parallel.
Also, each of the elements of the list works logically with what introduces the list, “people today routinely do things previously considered”. Now, this rule holds true for all the cases i.e. whenever we have a list in the sentence it is introduced by few words which carry over to each item of the list.
Members post their comments, complaints, and suggestions on the appropriate message boards.
Here each element of the list is introduced by ‘Members post their’
What is wrong with the below sentence?
Please leave a message including your name, your number, and explain why you called
As we know when a list of elements is present, each element is introduced by few words, in this sentence ‘Please leave a message including’ introduced all the elements of the list which works fine with the first and second element of the list but does not work with the last element.
Please leave a message including your name, your number, your reason for calling (The list works because each of the items goes well with the introduction)
What are rules pertaining to the elements that carry over the list
The elements that carry over the list must be the same for every element of the list, if it does not work then there is some issue that needs to be fixed.
Also, if there is confusion about which element should carry over, you can try a couple of them and one of them should definitely work with the other
e.g,
Kelly is a good friend because she is smart, loyal, and keeps my secret
Now you can try carryover with she or she is , let’s see what we get from each
Try she
she is smart ; she loyal; she keeps my secret (the Second element doesn’t work)
Try she is
She is smart; she is loyal; she is keeps my secret (The third element doesn’t work)
Since none of the two work there is issue with the sentence
What is wrong with the below sentence?
The barista made two double espressos, three caramel macchiatos, and he made a soy cappucccino
The list carry-over ‘barista made’ or ‘made’ does not work because of he in the third element
What is wrong with the below sentence?
Because they prefer to travel by skateboard, bicycle, or, even, on foot, the country’s young people are not very interested in automobiles
We can carry either ‘travel by’ or ‘travel’ but none of them would work, so one way to fix is as below
Because they prefer to travel by skateboard, by bicycle, or, even, on foot, the country’s young people are not very interested in automobiles
Here carry over is ‘prefer to travel’
What is wrong with the below sentence?
The members of the committee decided to reduce marketing expenditures, increase headcount significantly, and to change the schedule
The issue with the sentence is it partially repeats a carryover ‘to’ for some elements of list but not for all. It should either appear once before the first element of the list or with every element of the list
Is the below sentence correct?
The groom was congratulated by his friends, his parents, and guests he was meeting for the first time
Here ‘his’ is not the carryover element, so it need not be repeated, the carryover is ‘groom was congratulated by’ and it perfectly carry overs to all the elements
Observe the below sentence
Having scanned the tracks, the guide determined that the bison had come through the area approximately ten hours before, meandering around the watering hole before continuing on their way, they had numbered in the hundreds, though not more than 300, and that they had headed northwest
The word that is essential to what introduces the list, because ‘that’ is necessary for connecting ‘determined’ to what the guide determined. However, in the above version ‘that’ appears in only the first and last items in the list. Also, notice the sentence contains many modifiers, and ‘that’ need not be repeated in each one of those. The correct sentence would like below
Having scanned the tracks, the guide determined that the bison had come through the area approximately ten hours before, meandering around the watering hole before continuing on their way, that they had numbered in the hundreds, though not more than 300 hundred, and that they had headed northwest
There is now a contradictory piece to what we have covered so far, so sometimes it makes sense to repeat the element in the list to convey a logical meaning
- For the expedition, we need bags for supplies, the cameras, and the laptops
The sentence written as above could mean below things
a. We need a bag for supplies and then it mentions other things in addition to bags we need, like a camera and laptop
b. We need a bag for supplies, and it is in the bag that we are planning to put the camera, laptop, etc.
Observe the below sentence
Breck said that John will be the new class president and that Peter will be the new secretary
Breck said that John will be the new class president and Peter will be the new secretary
In the first sentence, since we have ‘that’ twice it means that it is Breck who said two things, while in second does not clarify if Breck himself said both the things
What is wrong with the below sentence?
Caterina claims that workers in the other countries handle tasks that were once handled by local workers, and robots do too
Since we only have one ‘that’ in the sentence, it conveys the meaning that both Caterina and robots claimed about the same thing but that would be illogical, we are missing a ‘that’ from this sentence
What is wrong with the below sentence?
The police chief was concerned by decreases in community support and the number of incidents involving negative interaction between citizen and officers
The sentence could be interpreted as conveying illogical meaning, that the police chief was concerned by the decrease in the number of incidents involving negative interaction between citizen and officers but that wouldn’t make sense, we can fix the sentence by repeating the ‘by’
The police chief was concerned by decreases in community support and by the number of incidents involving negative interaction between citizen and officers
Few examples of nested list
Please leave your name and your number and explain why you called
The above sentence is a nested list as it contains two lists, see the structure below
Please
leave (your name and your number)
explain why you called
The first part now contains two more items which form a nested list
The managing partner instructed the traders to sell the financial stocks, purchase precious metal stocks and technology stocks, and determine the yield to maturity of ten-year government bonds
The managing partner instructed the traders to:
sell the financial stocks
purchase (precious metal stocks and technology
stocks)
determine the yield to maturity of ten-year
government bonds
The list contains three elements with the second items being a list itself
