Despite being rivals on the cricket field, Andrew regarded Brett

Hi,

Normally Semicolon is used to connect two independent clauses. The sentence which starts after the semicolon is not a independent clause.

a fact that was obvious in the historic Ashes test match between their respective teams in 2005-- "A fact" denotes what??

This sentence cannot stand on its own. So it's a dependent clause. It depends on that fact that Andrew considers Brett has his friend and it was proven in this line.

So use semicolon to connect two independent clause.

In this case this line is not a independent clause. So it is wrong.
_________________

Proper idiom is Not X but Y. So eliminate A, & C.

The use of semicolon is not correct in option B. so eliminate B.

And option D is redundant. So correct option is E.

Hope it helps
_________________

Can you suggest why use of semicolon is not correct in option B ?

Can someone explain why D is incorrect?

Posted from my mobile device

not as X but as Y is correct idiomatically and as per parallelism, which is missing in (D)
_________________

Thanks Abhishek009. I missed the Idiom part. Kudos to you

Hi aashu4uiit,

Thank you for your question. Let's look the clear differences between each answer, and tackle them one at a time:

1. Parallel structure in the "not X, but Y" idiom
2. Use of comma versus semicolon

Let's start with parallel structure because it should narrow down the most answers. For the idiom to work, it needs to be structure "not as an X, but as a Y."

a) not as an adversary but a friend , a fact that was obvious (NOT PARALLEL)
b) not as an adversary but as a friend ; a fact that was obvious (PARALLEL)
c) as not an adversary but as a friend , a fact that was obvious (NOT PARALLEL)
d) as a friend not as an adversary, an obvious fact (NOT PARALLEL/WRONG STRUCTURE)
e) not as an adversary but as a friend , a fact that was obvious (PARALLEL)

Based on using parallel structure, we can eliminate answers A, C, & D. Now that we're left with answers B & E, let's look at #2 on the list: punctuation.

b) not as an adversary but as a friend; a fact that was obvious
This is WRONG because it uses a semicolon incorrectly. Semicolons can only be used when there are independent clauses before and after the semicolon. In this case, the clause after the semicolon can't stand alone and is dependent.

e) not as an adversary but as a friend, a fact that was obvious
This is the CORRECT answer because it uses proper parallel structure AND uses a comma, which is the correct punctuation for an independent clause + dependent clause.
_________________

Official Explanation:

Answer: E

(A) The use of not as necessitates the use of but as.
(B) The semicolon is not needed because the part after the comma is an appositive phrase
(C) Since as comes before not, it does not need to be repeated after but.
(D) The use of the phrase an obvious fact distorts the meaning of the sentence.
(E) The correct sentence.
_________________