OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONProject SC Butler: Day 69 Sentence Correction (SC1)
Despite some initial lack of enthusiasm, the work of William Faulkner, comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicated novels,, remains among the most revered in the American literary canon.
A) Despite some initial lack of enthusiasm, the work of William Faulkner, comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicated novels,
B) Despite some initial lack of enthusiasms, the works of William Faulkner, comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbusters, overpoweringly complicated novels,
C) Despite some initial lack of enthusiasm, the works of William Faulkner, comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicated novels,
D) Despite some initial lack of enthusiasms, the work of William Faulkner, comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbusters, overpoweringly complicated novels,
E) Despite some initial lack of enthusiasm, the works of William Faulkner are comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicated novels,
OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONMy annotations are in blue typeface.• The main verb of this sentence is
remains and its subject is
work• Since both
remains and work are
singular,
in option A they are in agreement. Keep option A.• Choice B incorrectly changes
enthusiasm to
enthusiasms, so eliminate B
• Choice C changes
work to
works.
The plural subject works is not in agreement with the singular noun remains, so C can be eliminated
• Choice D also changes
enthusiasm to
enthusiasms, so D can be eliminated.
• Finally, Option E also changes
work to
works [and the latter does not agree with remains,, so E can be eliminated.
The correct answer is A
COMMENTSVanmotan and
apwang and
sanpreetsingh , welcome!
We face a long sentence and answers that look alike.
We should
-- strip the sentence
-- find the subject and verb
-- get a general idea of the meaning
-- look for differences among choices, and
-- use "splits" to eliminate answers.
(Splits and process of elimination (POE) are discussed on the first page of the SC Butler thread in
this post..)
Use whatever works. Well, I take that back:
do not look for the one correct answer. Look for four wrong answers.
•
We do need to strip the sentence, though. Despite some initial lack of enthusiasm, the work of William Faulkner, comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicated novels,[/u], remains among the most revered in the American literary canon.
Look for
verbs first. -- "comprised of" in this sentence means "made up of."
Comprised of is a past participle (a verbED), not a verb
--
remains in the non-underlined portion is singular
Subject? work
This "work" means all of Faulkner's writing.
Modifier? comprised of? "OF" is a preposition and thus needs nouns. Look for nouns:
STORIES
NOVELS
-- The other noun cannot be "blockbuster." (1) A number of blockbuster" is ungrammatical. (2) if we stop at
blockbuster, then what is the rest of the phrase doing in the sentence?
Intro? Rewrite a bit:
Despite little enthusiasmStrip the rest
Despite
some initial lack of [LITTLE] enthusiasm, the work of William Faulkner, comprised of
a series of elegant short stories and
a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicatednovels,[/u], remains
among the most revered
in the American literary canon.Meaning: Despite a lukewarm reception, the work of Faulkner, comprised of stories and novels, remains revered (beloved and respected).Split #1: work or works?The verb
remains, in the non-underlined portion of the sentence, is singular. We need a singular noun. Correct:
Work remains.
(If in doubt, use a dog, or another easily pluralized noun.)
Correct: The dog remains sitting.
Wrong: The
dogs remains sitting.
Eliminate Options B, C, and E
Split #2: enthusiasm vs enthusiasmsThis one is idiomatic:
enthusiasm functions in the same way as
zeal. We do not pluralize it.
Technically
enthusiasm can be pluralized, but standard North American English does not do so.
Eliminate option D
Answer A
Other issues•
What are the prepositional objects?
-- One prepositional object of
a number OF is
novels. The other prepositional object is
stories. Novels has two modifiers:
(1) blockbuster
and
(2) overwhelmingly complicated
• weird adjectives
What about the weird words in this phrase:
a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicated novels?
Essentially the phrase means
a number of best-selling and very complicated novelsA noun (blockbuster) is an adjective?Yes. You will see this construction again.
The first noun in that phrase, "blockbuster," acts as an adjective that modifies the second noun, "novels."
Blockbuster means bestselling.
Again: the word
blockbuster is not a noun in this sentence. It's an adjective that means "best-selling."
Blockbuster?blockbuster is a "noun-adjective": a
noun that acts like an adjective. Noun-adjectives describe other nouns.
Blockbuster describes
novels.Meaning?A "blockbuster" novel is a bestseller.
English uses nouns as adjectives quite frequently:
office worker, math teacher, film director, airplane tickets.
As an adjective,
blockbuster describes
what type of novels these are (bestselling ones).
blockbuster is followed by two more descriptors ("overwhelmingly complicated")
"Overwhelmingly complicated" is also an adjective phrase that describes
novels.-- "a number of" = quantifier
A number of is yet another noun modifier that refers to
novels.Structure?[a number of] +
[blockbuster,] +
[overpoweringly complicated] +
[NOVELS]
[quantifier] +
[noun as adjective,] +
[adjective phrase] +
[NOUN]
One last time: the phrase means
a number of best-selling and very complicated novels.COMMENTSAs promised, everyone who explained gets kudos.
We have two outstanding answers by
RamSep and
GKomoku -- I'm bumping you both
Kudos to all who explained!