Metals, pigments and other chemical substances used by ancient culture

Splits :

Both of vs Of both :

Of both is correct. B & D are out.

Option E "the use of toxic lead" is wrong. Out.

A : "Demonstrates" is singular. Out.

Option C : Correct.

Hi daagh
My question with C is how can "lead" demonstrate something?
Shouldn't "the use of lead" demonstrate?
Regards
Bitan

Could you please elaborate on why is "the use of lead" wrong?

The original sentence incorrectly pairs a singular subject ( the use) with a plural verb ( demonstrate). Don’t be misled by the distance between these two; everything between them is a modifier. In fact, the distance between use and demonstrate is so extreme that it’s easy to forget that use needs a verb. The correct choice should avoid this problem.

(A) This choice is incorrect, as it repeats the original sentence.

(B) This choice fixes the subject-verb agreement problem (and the problem of distance) by changing the beginning to demonstrated by the use. However, it introduces two new problems. First, parallelism is broken in the phrase both of their aqueducts and their private homes. The first marker word ( both) is followed by of their, but the second marker word ( and) is followed directly by their. The proper form would be both of their… and of their… or of both their… and their…. Second, the prepositional phrase by the Romans is so far removed from the noun it goes with ( use) that we lose track of the meaning.

(C) CORRECT. This answer choice fixes all grammatical problems. Verbs are placed close to their natural subjects ( demonstrated by the toxic lead, ancient Romans used). Also, the parallelism of the both… and… construction at the end of the sentence is proper. It could be argued that the meaning has shifted ever so slightly (this choice states that the toxic lead itself demonstrates the point, rather than the use of that toxic lead), but we are left with no other choice, and a meaning shift of this minute degree is tolerable.

(D) This choice introduces a subject-verb disagreement: toxic lead… demonstrate. Moreover, these two (subject and verb) are still separated by an enormous distance, with many distracting elements in between.

(E) This choice still has a parallelism issue in the both their aqueducts and private homes. If both is followed by their, then and should be followed by their, too. Also, the separation of the modifier of toxic lead from the use creates a meaning problem, because this modifier seems to attach to ancient Romans.

The correct answer is C.

A time consuming question and a tricky one.
I narrowed it down using parallelism after both.
Only A, C and D follow parallelism. B and D out.
A uses the verb "demonstrate" for the noun phrase " the use of toxic lead by ancient Romans" and S-V disagreement.
D uses the verb "demonstrate" for noun "lead " . Agaiin S-V error.
so A and D out
Answer C

A incorrectly uses the plural verb demonstrate. B wrongly uses ‘both of’. The correct phrase is ‘of both’. D also has an SV disagreement. ‘lead’ requires a singular verb, ‘demonstrate’ is plural. ‘The use of toxic lead’ is very awkward phrasing, so E is not the best option.

So, C is the correct answer.

Hi daagh sir,
I have same question. Could you help me understand this?

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