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Thread: Parallelism

  1. #1
    lucalita009's Avatar
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    Default Parallelism

    I have a sentence that is not parallel. Hope you guys can help me to correct it.

    - My pet peeves are screeching chalk, buses that are late, and dripping sinks.

    Thank you all.

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    Default Re: Parallelism

    My pet peeves are screeching chalk, late buses, and dripping faucets.
    The sink doesn't drip, it leaks. The faucet drips.
    Most people would understand you, however, if you used sink.

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    Default Re: Parallelism

    Quote Originally Posted by lucalita009 View Post
    I have a sentence that is not parallel. Hope you guys can help me to correct it.

    - My pet peeves are screeching chalk, buses that are late, and dripping sinks.

    Thank you all.
    It is essentially parallel. You have three nouns: chalk, buses, and sinks (faucets).

    You can increase the uniformity by changing them to the same adjective/noun order.
    screeching chalk
    late buses
    dripping facuets

    chalk that screeches
    buses that are late
    faucets that drip

    However, most people aren't that vigilent about parallelism. What would be objectionable non-parallelism would be something like "screeching chalk, when buses are late, and if the faucet drips."
    I'm not a teacher, but I write for a living. Please don't ask me about 2nd conditionals, but I'm a safe bet for what reads well in (American) English.

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    Default Re: Parallelism

    Thank you so much
    I thought I had to use V-ing + Noun but it seems not

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    Default Re: Parallelism

    ps. In Britain, we have taps, not faucets.
    Context is always important; labelling is rarely important.


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    Default Re: Parallelism

    And somewhere in the US, we have spigots. Here's that's what the garden hose attaches to on the outside of your house, but I'm sure that somewhere it's that thing for your inside sinks.
    I'm not a teacher, but I write for a living. Please don't ask me about 2nd conditionals, but I'm a safe bet for what reads well in (American) English.

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