Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island. (A) excepting for (B) except in (C) but except in (D) but excepting for (E) with the exception of 01.jpg 02.jpg English World-wide - Volumes 18-19 - Page 65 https://books.google.com.my/books?id=gMpAAQAAIAAJ 1997 - ‎Snippet view - ‎More editions THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN MAURITIUS: PAST AND PRESENT PETER STEIN Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, but except in the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on ...

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Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the

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Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years,excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

A. excepting for

B. except in

C. but except in

D. but excepting for

E. with the exception of

In this question
I read previous posts and based on my intuition
I can eliminate A, B, E and finally D.
However, I feel uncomfortable, since some grammatical enigma I can't untangle.

I checked dictionaries and I now know the word 'except' can become preposition, conjunction and verb.
Moreover, there is the word 'excepting' as a preposition.

Question 1
Given that except can be conjunction and it's meaning is 'not including'
Why (B) 'except in' is wrong? It can be alternative choice of 'but'?
because but is used to introduce an added statement, usually something that is different from what you have said before ??

Question 2
I have a question about this comma '","the English language was never really spoken'
From OA bellow, there's a conjunction 'but' so I don't know the function of this comma.
Can I omit this comma?

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years,but except in the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

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12 Mar 2018, 15:18

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snowbirdskier

If you can find the meaning of a screwed up sentence like this in the first place, it is good for you. But I couldn't make that, but my logic was little different, hence sharing with you.

Mauritius...... Is an Independent clause
the English language ----- is an independent clause too

So, to connect any two Independent clauses, there are only two most popular ways. Either join them using a semicolon Or use a Comma + FANBOYS construction model.
Using this information, the only suitable thing that you can see is Choice C & D, which use COMMA + BUT construction.

C- The english language was never spoken ......, except in domain...... ----> is cool
D- The english language was never spoken ......, except for domain......> Kill it.

I learned all this in my analysis. Hope it helps

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egmat

Paras237

Except can also be used as a conjunction.
It implies but and except are redundant. So why B is incorrect?

Hello Paras237,

I will be glad to help you out with one.

When two words having the same meaning is used in a sentence to convey an idea, redundancy error takes place. For example,

1. He annually participates in a marathon every year.

2. Although she is good in English literature, but she could not score well in the exam.

In both the above-mentioned sentence, we spot redundancy error because annually and every year in sentence 1 and although and but in sentence 2 mean the same and present the same idea.

However, in the context of this official sentence, use of but and except together does not lead to redundancy error because both these words have been used to present two different contrasts as follows.

Contrast 1 = Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, but the English language was never really spoken on the island.

Contrast 2 = Except in the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

As you can see, while but presents the contrast with regards to English not being spoken in Mauritius despite it being a British colony for two centuries, use of except tells us that in which areas the language was used.

Remove any of the word from the sentence and you will see that the sentence misses something.

Also, comma + but is required in the sentence to join the two independent clauses -

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years
the English language was never really spoken on the island.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.
Shraddha

"except in the domains of administration and teaching" , I want to have clarity on the subject and verb of this clause

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egmat

anandch1994

egmat and mikemcgarry
Can you please help me splitting up the sentences into clauses. According to the og solution the two clauses here are
1) Mauritius was a British.......200 years
2) expecting...island
Why cant i split it into two clauses this way:
1)Mauritius was...teaching ( being the first clause)
2)the english....island

Hello anandch1994,

Thank you for the query. I will be glad to help you with this one.

Let's take a good look at the sentence:

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching,

the English language was never really spoken on the island.

(subjects = blue, verbs = green)

As you can see, the sentence has above-mentioned two clauses. Both the clauses are Independent clauses (ICs) as the phrase excepting for... just acts as a modifier for the second IC. These two ICs are connected by just a comma. This structure is not correct as two ICs need comma + FANBOYS or a semicolon or a dash in between for grammatical connection.

On the basis of this connection in the sentence, we can eliminate Choice A, B, and E.

Now between Choice C and D, C is the correct answer as it uses the correct idiom except in.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.
Shraddha

1) I was always thinking that if an......... independent clause.......... is followed by a "comma"..... modifier........ "comma" ......another independent clause...... then you don't need FANBOYS to connect
please help me on this
2) how except in domains of administration and teaching is an independent clause?

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30 May 2018, 15:15

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kunalkhanna

"except in the domains of administration and teaching" , I want to have clarity on the subject and verb of this clause

Hello kunalkhanna,

This is in response to your PM. I apologize for getting back to this one a bit late.

In the phrase except in the domains of administration and teaching, there is no SV pair. Hence, it is not a clause. This phrase is the modifier for the clause that follows it: the English language (subject) was never really spoken (verb) on the island.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.
Shraddha

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Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, except in the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

"Administration" is a noun & "Teaching" here is acting like a activity so, it's a gerund
Noun and Gerund

Is there no mistake of parallelism here ?
egmat AjiteshArun

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Smitc007

Hello Smitc007!

In this sentence, both "administration" and "teaching" are referring to two different career fields - and it's okay that they're worded differently. Teaching is not considered an action verb here - it's how we refer to the career field that teachers work in. If this was your own writing, and you wanted to make it sound more parallel, you could certainly change "teaching" to "education," but the meaning there is a little less clear. Education encompasses a lot more than just teachers and their work, so "teaching" is the clearer term here.

When it comes to how we refer to career fields, they have a variety of endings:

Accounting / Construction / Management / Writing / Communication / Logistics

I hope this helps!

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18 Jun 2019, 13:32

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EMPOWERgmatVerbal

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, and narrow it down to the right choice! It's a pretty short sentence, so this should be a quick one to answer! To start, here is the original question with the major differences between the options highlighted in orange:

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

(A) excepting for
(B) except in
(C) but except in
(D) but excepting for
(E) with the exception of

Okay, to be honest, you could highlight everything in each option because they're short and all different. However, if you look at the entire sentence, carefully, a major clue should jump out at you:

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

We have two INDEPENDENT CLAUSES in here with a phrase separating them. Whenever we have two independent clauses in a sentence, what do we need to have to connect them? A conjunction or a semicolon!

Let's take a look at each sentence with the non-underlined parts worked back in. Make sure that there is some way to separate the two independent clauses that is grammatically correct (a conjunction or semicolon):

(A) Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

This is INCORRECT because there is no conjunction to connect the two independent clauses together. It's actually a run-on sentence with a modifier in between to throw you off! A modifier is not good enough to separate two independent clauses - it MUST be a conjunction or semicolon.

(B) Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, except in the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

This is also INCORRECT because it doesn't have a conjunction to connect our two independent clauses! A modifier in between them isn't good enough!

(C) Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, but except in the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

This is CORRECT! It uses the coordinating conjunction "but" to combine the two independent clauses together to create one complete sentence.

(D) Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, but excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

This is INCORRECT. While it does use the conjunction "but" to combine the two clauses, we have an idiom problem. The phrase "excepting for" is not an acceptable idiom in English. "Except in" or "with the exception of" are the correct forms of this idiom.

(E) Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, with the exception of the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

This is INCORRECT because it doesn't use a conjunction to connect the two independent clauses. It's one long run-on sentence with a modifier in between, which isn't good enough to work.

There you have it - option C is the correct choice! It's the only one that uses a conjunction to connect two independent clauses together AND doesn't have any idiom issues.

Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.

Hi,

I have a doubt. I get the whole reasoning why A and B are run-on sentences but I am just confused about option C.

In the main sentence except in the domains of administration and teaching acts as a modifier

But in option C what do the below highlighted parts act as?

except in the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island - Do they act as 1 independent clause or is the first part still a modifier ? how can teaching, the engish language......... make sense?

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Sanjeetgujrall

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Hello Sanjeetgujrall!

Thank you for your question. Let's take a look at option C to break down each part's function:

(C) Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, but except in the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years = INDEPENDENT CLAUSE
except in the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island. = INDEPENDENT CLAUSE
but = COORDINATING CONJUNCTION (what we use to connect 2 independent clauses together)

The phrase "except in the domains of administration and teaching" is still a modifier here - it's modifying "the English language." This would still be the case if you split these 2 independent clauses into 2 separate sentences. We just needed to make sure that there was a conjunction to join the 2 independent clauses together, otherwise the modifier sounds confusing and unclear. Here is how the options break down:

Options A, B, & E are run-on sentences because there is no conjunction joining the 2 independent clauses together.
Option D uses a conjunction, but the phrase "excepting for" isn't idiomatically correct, so we rule that out.
This leaves us with option C - the only one that uses the right idiom and a conjunction.

I hope this helps!

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EMPOWERgmatVerbal

Hello Everyone!

This is INCORRECT. While it does use the conjunction "but" to combine the two clauses, we have an idiom problem. The phrase "excepting for" is not an acceptable idiom in English. "Except in" or "with the exception of" are the correct forms of this idiom.

(E) Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, with the exception of the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.

Hi,

I understand "excepting for" is not an acceptable idiom, but how about "except for"? As a matter of fact that GMAC does use the phrase "except for" (eg,Except for a concert performance that the composer himself staged in 1911, Scott Joplin's ragtime opera Treemonisha was not produced until 1972, sixty-one years after its completion.).

Can you please explain the difference between "except in" and "except for"?

Thanks!

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15 Oct 2019, 11:53

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el1234

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Hi el1234!

First, "except for" is idiomatically correct, but "excepting for" is not.

There really isn't much difference between "except in" and "except for." Which one you choose depends on the context of the sentence you're adding it to:

I like all Halloween candy, except for the ones that contain caramel.
The character shows up throughout the book, except in chapters 2 and 3.

I hope this helps!

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Hi all! I am a bit confused on how "but except in the domains of administration and teaching" does not become a non-essential modifier when it is offset by commas in the middle of the sentence?

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Updated on: 07 Oct 2021, 02:44

Originally posted by thangvietnam on 24 Sep 2020, 03:32.
Last edited by thangvietnam on 07 Oct 2021, 02:44, edited 1 time in total.

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"except"( and "except for") is a preposition and is normally stands before a noun

I know many languages except english.

but, from this problem, we can see that "except" can be used before a preposition phrase. the point of meaning here is that we talk about many situations and we differentiate a situation.

I worked in many countries except in US.

this use of "except" before a preposition phrase to talk about a different situation from many other situation is rare. this makes this problem hard to us.

so, the point here is "except" can be used before a preposition phrase

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25 Sep 2020, 06:38

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Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

Meaning: Other than the administration and teaching, English is not really used on the island. A contrast connection should be formed to connect to clauses

(A) excepting for no connection word
(B) except in no connection word
(C) but except in Good enough. But shows contrast
(D) but excepting for excepting for is wrong
(E) with the exception of no connection word

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Paras237

Except can also be used as a conjunction.
It implies but and except are redundant. So why B is incorrect?

Hello Paras237,

I will be glad to help you out with one.

Thanks.
Shraddha

Hi Shraddha!

I have another question about this: why is there a comma behind "teaching"? I know that we need a comma before "but" but I am unable to define the second comma grammatically.

Thanks a lot already!!
Tamara

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Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

(A) excepting for- > excepting the English language. It doesn't make sense. And, we need a contrast, which is missing here.
(B) except in-> except the English language. It does make sense. But, we need a contrast, which is missing here.
(C) but except in-> Okay. Now both errors are corrected. Let's keep it.
(D) but excepting for-> But is helpful for contrast, excepting is still incorrect modifier for the English language.
(E) with the exception of-> Exception the English language. No!

So, I think C.

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Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

(A) excepting for X
(B) except in X
(C) but except in Correct
(D) but excepting for X
(E) with the exception of X

Between B and C, you need the 'but' in there to signal a contrast. Here is a simpler version of the sentence: Mauritius is a British colony, but except in (the domains...), the English language was never really spoken on the island.

Now we can see more clearly that excluding but renders the sentence devoid of the contrast

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el1234

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Hi EMPOWERgmatVerbal egmat GMATNinja VeritasKarishma

I wrongly eliminated (C) and then chose (D), because I think (C) use verb at the begining of the clause.

After reading your forum, it seems like the word "Except" can act as verb or preposition modifier.
Therefore, when do we use "excepting" or "excepted" as modifiers?

Thanks!

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Thanks for your question TorGmatGod!

The words "excepting" and "excepted" are rarely ever used in modern English. So rarely, in fact, we had to look them up just to be sure they were actually words.

The word "excepting" can be used in place of the phrase "except for" or "apart from" in some cases. However, using "excepting for" is not correct - you'd just use "excepting." Here's an example:

I enjoyed the entire 8-course meal, except for the seaweed salad. --> OKAY
I enjoyed the entire 8-course meal, excepting the seaweed salad. --> OKAY
I enjoyed the entire 8-course meal, excepting for the seaweed salad. -->WRONG

The word "excepted" can be use as a replacement for the words "excluding," "excluded," or "except for." It's used after you refer to a person or thing to show that they/it are not included in the group you're talking about.

Students are expected to study every night for 2-3 hours, weekends excepted. --> OKAY

I hope that helps! We enjoyed the challenge on this one!

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15 Nov 2021, 21:55

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snowbirdskier

(A) excepting for - Wrong because, excepting for is bad, except for is better
(B) except in - This gives 2 independent clause. Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years. AND. The English language was never really spoken on the island.
(C) but except in - This brings in the required contrast and makes 2 independent clause connected.
(D) but excepting for - excepting for is bad, except for is better
(E) with the exception of - Alters the meaning here. Wrongly modifying by showing `domains as an exception` instead of `english in domain as an exception`