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America’s nonclassical singers, such figures like Mabel Mercer, Tony 21 May 2020, 13:22
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America’s nonclassical singers, such figures like Mabel Mercer, Tony Bennett, and Ray Charles, work within a rich tradition that developed from ragtime.

A. America’s nonclassical singers, such figures like
B. Such figures like America’s nonclassical singers,
C. America’s nonclassical singers, a figure like
D. Figures like America’s nonclassical singers,
E. America’s nonclassical singers, such figures as


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America’s nonclassical singers, such figures like Mabel Mercer, Tony 21 May 2020, 13:44
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Bunuel
America’s nonclassical singers, such figures like Mabel Mercer, Tony Bennett, and Ray Charles, work within a rich tradition that developed from ragtime.

A. America’s nonclassical singers, such figures like
B. Such figures like America’s nonclassical singers,
C. America’s nonclassical singers, a figure like
D. Figures like America’s nonclassical singers,
E. America’s nonclassical singers, such figures as


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(A) The main issue with the original sentence is the usage of 'such like'. This is unidiomatic. The correct idiom is 'su ch as'.
(B) Repeats the idiom error of A.
(C) 'a figure' is incorrect usage as it refers to more than one singer. Also, like is incorrect to state examples. such as is better suited for this purpose.
(D) Apart from the incorrect usage of 'like', this sentence has meaning error. It is not the figures that work but the singers that do the work. Thus, this option is incorrect.
(E) This is the correct option. The subject of the sentence is 'singers'. such as is used to present examples.
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America’s nonclassical singers, such figures like Mabel Mercer, Tony 20 Aug 2020, 12:19
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America’s nonclassical singers, such figures like Mabel Mercer, Tony Bennett, and Ray Charles, work within a rich tradition that developed from ragtime.

Is "such" used here as a determiner?
Is a determiner needed in this instance when "America's nonclassical singers" already describe "figures"?
Is "..., SUCH figures AS Mabel..." grammatically correct? Can you split -such as-?


Thanks in advance
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America’s nonclassical singers, such figures like Mabel Mercer, Tony 28 Oct 2020, 01:13
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Here's the official explanation provided by the GMAC for this question:

The sentence provides examples of American singers not working within the classical-music tradition and places their work within a rich tradition originating with ragtime. The key issue is how best to cite examples of the class America’s nonclassical singers. With the word figures, which occurs in all the answer choices, the correct idiomatic form for doing so is such figures as, rather than such figures like.

Option A: The form such figures like is not idiomatic.

Option B: The form such figures like is not idiomatic. Furthermore, this wording conveys an unintended meaning, namely that America’s nonclassical singers are just the three named. It oddly suggests that the figures in question merely resembled America's three nonclassical singers and were not themselves among those singers.

Option C: The singular a figure does not fit with the plural singers.

Option D: This conveys an unintended meaning, namely that America’s nonclassical singers are just the three named. The use of like to cite examples of a class is acceptable in casual speech, but it is ambiguous between similar to and such as, so the latter is usually preferable in more formal contexts. Here, use of like is inappropriate and implies that there may have been singers who are not among America’s nonclassical singers but who resemble them and work within the rich tradition described.

Option E: Correct. The locution such figures as is idiomatically used to cite examples of a class.

The correct answer is E.

Please note that I'm not the author of this explanation. I'm just posting it here since I believe it can help the community.
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America’s nonclassical singers, such figures like Mabel Mercer, Tony 17 Nov 2022, 14:07
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