on the inside/inside

[diamondcutter]

1. Bones are hard on the outside, but they are soft on the inside.
2. Mercury is baking hot on the outside, but stone cold on the inside.

Could I rewrite these two sentences as follows?

1a. Bones are hard on the outside, but they are soft inside.
2a. Mercury is baking hot on the outside, but stone cold inside.

 

[jutfrank]

Why would you want to do that? Don't. The phrases should be in parallel: on the outside and on the inside.

(I'm not sure that it's appropriate to describe the core of Mercury as 'stone cold'!)

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I don't mind it.

But if you want to make it more parallel, as Jut suggests, say something like:

- Bones are hard outside but soft inside.

- Mercury is hot outside but cold inside.

 

[tedmc]

I think it is better to be consistent - parallelism to sound technical.