advantage or favoritism

[keannu]

This is a question of a school's finals, and they usually don't quickly give the answer for free questions, so the answer wasn't finalized. But I think either "advantage" or "favoritism" can be the answer, and I lean towards "favoritism" more. What do you think?

P: Jenny Hernandez is the manager of a medium­sized company that employs about 25 people. Jenny’s leadership has been contributing to the success of the company. One characteristic of Jenny’s style is her . She does not want to give anyone the impression that certain people have an advantage, and she makes a lot of effort to prevent this from happening. For example, she avoids social lunches because she thinks they create the perception of favoritism. Similarly, even though her best friend is one of the employees, she is seldom seen talking with her, and if she is, it is always about business matters.

Q: Which best fits the blank according to the above paragraph?
Jenny Hernandez has her own strategies for running the company successfully. One of them is to be as fair as possible for everything she is involved as an employer. She never gives any ____ to anybody by not having social gatherings or personal talks at all.

 

[emsr2d2]

This is a question of a school's finals, and they usually don't quickly give the answer for free questions, so the answer wasn't finalized. But I think either "advantage" or "favoritism" can be the answer, and I lean towards "favoritism" more. What do you think?

P: Jenny Hernandez is the manager of a medium*sized company that employs about 25 people. Jenny’s leadership has been contributing to the success of the company. One characteristic of Jenny’s style is her . She does not want to give anyone the impression that certain people have an advantage, and she makes a lot of effort to prevent this from happening. For example, she avoids social lunches because she thinks they create the perception of favoritism. Similarly, even though her best friend is one of the employees, she is seldom seen talking with her, and if she is, it is always about business matters.

Q: Which best fits the blank according to the above paragraph?
Jenny Hernandez has her own strategies for running the company successfully. One of them is to be as fair as possible for everything she is involved as an employer. She never gives any ____ to anybody by not having social gatherings or personal talks at all.

In my opinion, you "show people favoritism" so I don't think that "She never gives any favoritism to anybody" works. You can, however, give someone an advantage so "She never gives any advantage to anybody" is better - I will qualify that by saying that I don't like the use of "any" there.

Having just re-read the question, the sentence "One of them is to be as fair as possible for everything she is involved as an employer" is very poor English. I don't think this was written by a native speaker. It's messy anyway but could at least be improved to "One of them is to be as fair as possible with everything she is involved in as an employer."

 

[keannu]

:up::up::up: Thanks a lot! You're right. It wasn't written by a native speaker, but a Korean English teacher.
I think you meant "She never gives advantage to anybody" is better as "any~ any"'s one more "any" is redundant.

 

[BobK]

:up::up::up: Thanks a lot! You're right. It wasn't written by a native speaker, but a Korean English teacher.
I think you meant "She never gives advantage to anybody" is better as "any~ any"'s one more "any" is redundant.

5jj didn't mean to omit the first 'any'. It makes sense; it's just not terribly elegant. He says 'it's better', not it's good'

There are two areas where 'any' can operate:

• Choosing any person to favour, out of the range of possible people
• Choosing an advantage to give, out of the range of possible advantages

You could avoid the problem by saying something like '...by giving anyone the slightest advantage'.

b

 

[emsr2d2]

5jj didn't mean to omit the first 'any'. It makes sense; it's just not terribly elegant. He says 'it's better', not it's good'

There are two areas where 'any' can operate:

• Choosing any person to favour, out of the range of possible people
• Choosing an advantage to give, out of the range of possible advantages

You could avoid the problem by saying something like '...by giving anyone the slightest advantage'.

b

Wow, when did I morph into 5jj?! :shock:

 

[keannu]

I really doubt if native speakers never say "She never gives any favoritism to anybody". Does only "show favoritism" work?

 

[BobK]

I really doubt if native speakers never say "She never gives any favoritism to anybody". Does only "show favoritism" work?

Are there any grounds for your doubt? If you want to say 'give favouritism' fine. You'll just sound silly.

Here are the BNC hits for '<verb> + favoritism':

1 SHOW FAVOURITISM 3
2 SHOWING FAVOURITISM 1
3 SHARES FAVOURITISM 1
4 HOLDING FAVOURITISM 1
5 EXPRESSES FAVOURITISM 1
6 DISPUTES FAVOURITISM 1
7 BEEN FAVOURITISM 1

It's not a very common collocation - there are only nine hits. Four of them are for 'show/~ing'. So when you ask 'Does only "show favoritism" work?' the Answer is 'Not quite; but it's by far the commonest verb to use with 'favouritism' - nearly half as common as all the other possibilities put together. (In BNC there are no hits with the U-less spelling.. The COCA hits (U-less) are many more: 79. 31 of those are for'show/-ing/~s/~n/~ed). [COCA does list a single case of 'give favoritism', but in a context that suggests it may have been written by a NSS

By cheating (using a phrasal verb with the verb 'give') it's possible to make 'take' seem to work:
'I've tried everything else, I might as well give favouritism a whirl' - here what you're giving is not 'favoritism', it's 'a whirl to favouritism'


b

 

[keannu]

I can't thank you enough! And that's why I'm always saying that non-native speakers can't catch up with native speakers however experienced they are, as languages are more based on experience than learning.