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The Merciless Grammarian Fall 2007 / Columns
The Merciless Grammarian spews his wrath on nasty problems of grammar, mechanics, and style.
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Drawing by Nathan Baran Most Merciless, Some of my sentences seem out of whack, but I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong. Do you see anything amiss in these sentences? I went to the grocery store, the pharmacy, and I visited my friend Barbara. I saw not only the biggest apple pie ever baked but also drank the best milk shake I've ever had. Respectfully, Augustine Bellicose Most Out of Whack, A common saw following the demise of a dictator is that at least under the old demagogue the streets were clean and the trains ran on time. Your sentences could use the ministrations of such a despot, as they are seriously unregulated. The problem? A lack of parallel structure. The dictum at the heart of this treasured feature of well-crafted prose is that similar things require similar grammatical forms. Linking two or more items with a connector like and or but requires that each item be structured similarly. Take your first sentence. The first two items work quite capably as nouns naming where you went: the grocery store, the pharmacy. That third item, though, is an entire clause, complete with its own subject and verb. Try to
make that follow the preposition to, will you? “I went to I visited my friend Barbara?” I think not. To alleviate such a disjunction, you would make the third item fall in line with the other two by making it a noun: I went to the grocery store, the pharmacy, and my friend Barbara’s ramshackle manse. Your second sentence uses a more complicated connector, not only … but also. For some reason, such correlative conjunctions turn the brains of the less acute to so much prune whip. After not only is placed, they forget what follows it and throw in but also willy nilly. To test for parallel structure, place what follows each half of the conjunction after the main verb: (1) I saw … the biggest apple pie ever baked; (2) I saw … drank the best milk shake I've ever had. The mind reels. Since it is in fact the verbs that are being linked, placing the first half of the conjunction before saw will create sweet parallelism: I not only saw the biggest apple pie ever baked but also drank the best milk shake I've ever had. Let me add, too, that your enthusiasm over excessively large baked goods is suspect. I suggest that you realign your priorities in life. Yours in majesty, The Merciless One ‹ South Central Writing Centers Association Conference CFP
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