Bunuel wrote:
During the Industrial Revolution, England meted out the death penalty for more than two hundred offences including stealing turnips, to associate with gypsies, cut down a tree, or to pick pockets.
(A) to associate with gypsies, cut down a tree, or to pick
(B) to associate with gypsies, to cut down a tree, or to pick
(C) associating with gypsies, cutting down a tree, or picking
(D) associating with gypsies, cut down a tree, or pick
(E) to associate with gypsies ,cut down a tree, or pick
OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
The error in this sentence is one of lack of parallelism in structure. This sentence seeks to enumerate four offences for which the death penalty was meted out in England during the industrial revolution. Idiomatic English requires that all these four be mentioned in the same grammatical form. But, while the first offence (which is non-underlined) is mentioned in the form of a gerund ‘stealing turnips’, the second and fourth are mentioned in the form of infinitives ‘to associate with gypsies’ and ‘to pick pockets’, while the third is mentioned merely as ‘cut down a tree’. So, (A) lacks parallelism in structure, and is wrong.
The correct version must have all the other three offences also in the form of gerunds. Of the remaining choices, it is only (C) which fulfills this condition, and is the answer.
_________________