What in advertisements/Things in advertisements

[I'm a Chubby Baby]

Hi, everyone. First, I wrote Sentence 1. But I feel a lack of parallelism.
1.Things in advertisements always look much better than what people already have.

So, I came up with Sentence 2. Is it better?
2.What in advertisements always look/looks? much better than what people already have.

 

[Tarheel]

The second one is not better than the first one. It is simply different.

(Say: "What ... always looks ...?")

 

[emsr2d2]

Sentence 2 doesn't make sense.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Hi, everyone. First, I wrote sentence 1, but I feel it lacks [STRIKE]of[/STRIKE] parallelism.

1.Things in advertisements always look much better than what people already have.

It does not lack parallelism. Simplify it:

- Things look better than what people have.

- These look better than those.

So, I came up with sentence 2. Is it better?

2.What is in advertisements always looks much better than what people already have.

It's different but not better or worse. You've simply added the word what.

- What is in ads looks better than what people have.

- This looks better than that.

When in doubt, simplify.

 

[Tdol]

I prefer the original, but how about using stuff instead of things?

 

[tedmc]

How about:

What appears in advertisements always looks much better than what people already have?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I prefer the original, but how about using stuff instead of things?

I'd much rather see things. Maybe it's because I've seen too many college papers with the phrase "and stuff like that."

 

[Tdol]

In BrE, you will see it used in this context- advertisers just want you to buy stuff you don't need, etc.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

In BrE, you will see it used in this context- advertisers just want you to buy stuff you don't need, etc.

We see it, too.

In that context, it's not a lazy word choice. It fits. It suggests that they're trying to sell us a lot of junk.

 

[Tdol]

Are they? Well, I never. ;-)