Unable to build nests or care for their young, a female cowbird lays u

Both including and including those of are correct and the usage would depend on the meaning..
Here we want to give examples of birds after including, so THOSE OF is wrong..
However if we had a sentence -
female cowbirds use the nests, including those of other birds, to lay eggs.... Here those means nests

there is no comparison issue here, right?

Because at first, it sounds like they are comparing NESTS of other birds with the other birds, which is illogical. But after re reading the sentence, i do not see any comparison triggers such as like/than/and.

For example if i say: "During recess time, I clean up the desks of my classmates, including Adam, Brad, and Charlie."

Is the sentence above correct? Because to me, it sounds like the list in the end should be "Adam's, Brad's, and Charlie's" My logic is the parallelism issue here that the middle part of the sentence is talking about "desks of my classmates" so the last part should also refer to their desks and not themselves?

Can someone help my understand better please? Thanks.

I'm really guessing that there's no parallelism issue here, I just need someone to confirm.

GMATNinja daagh mikemcgarry

This is a valid concern, but we don't really have a choice here. (B) and (C) are both out because "those of" seems to refer to the "eggs of other birds." Obviously a cowbird doesn't lay the actual eggs of other birds, so that wouldn't make any sense.

(A), (D), and (E) all end with "in the nests of other birds, including warblers, vireos, flycatchers, and thrushes," so we don't actually have to worry about this point! Could we instead say, "in the nests of other birds, including THOSE OF warblers, vireos, etc."? Sure, but is that necessary? The correct meaning is already clear without adding "those of".

Because the remaining options are identical at the end and because the absence of "those of" does not cause any obvious problems or break any specific grammar rules, we can move on to other decision points.

(D) female cowbirds lay up to 40 eggs a year in the nests of other birds, including

In the answer choice D we can see a comma before the word "including" which modifies immediately preceding noun "other birds", as we know we do not need a comma for verb-ing modifier which modifies immediately preceding noun. Do we really need a comma before including?
For example, Marry noticed a beautiful bouquet releasing a pleasant aroma.

In my opinion, the usage of a verb-ing is correct even without a comma depending on the sentence structure. However, have a look at these two sentences and notice the change in meaning without and with a comma:

Marry noticed a beautiful bouquet releasing a pleasant aroma -->bouquet is the doer of the action of releasing.

Marry noticed a beautiful bouquet, releasing a pleasant aroma-->Here it seems to me Marry is the doer of releasing a pleasant aroma after having noticed a beautiful bouquet (haha!)

cathygeorge123

Including is an exception in the sense that it is not treated as an ing modifier that modifies preceding action.

Including modifies nearest noun and tell you about what that noun includes amongst many others.

For eg in above example “including” modifies birds and gives information about the few types of birds amongst many

I have had issues with including in the past as well but got it resolved later

Posted from my mobile device

Hi cathygeorge123, this indeed creates confusion.

The thing is that including is not really a present participle, but actually a preposition. Hence, the general rules of participial phrases do not apply to including.

including can modify the Noun or Noun-Phrase immediately before the word including.

An officially correct sentence:

A study by the Ocean Wildlife Campaign urged states to undertake a number of remedies to reverse a decline in the shark population, including establishing size limits for shark catches, closing state waters for shark fishing during pupping season, and requiring commercial fishers to have federal shark permits.

Notice how including modifies a rather far-away noun remedies.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana has a special note on the usage of including. Have attached the corresponding section of the book, for your reference.

EducationAisle

Hello Ashish, Thanks for the example that shows how including can modify far-away noun.

May I know if including follows the same rule as other noun modifiers - which or that - as far as modifying far-away nouns are concerned? i.e. an essential noun modifier might fall before a comma and 'including' can then modify the far-away noun

Well, which is considerably less likely than that, to modify a far-away noun.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses "which vs that" modifier issue, its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

Hello shameekv1989,

You correctly say that comma + including... is an exception to the usage of the comma + verb-ing modifier as an action modifier. The word including, even if preceded by a comma and placed after a clause, the word including ALWAYS acts as a noun modifier. It always associates with the logical noun entity in the sentence. This logical noun entity can be right before including or far-away in the sentence.

Notice the usage of including in the following official sentence:

The principal feature of the redesigned checks is a series of printed instructions that the company hopes will help merchants confirm a check’s authenticity, including reminders to watch the endorsement, compare signatures, and view the watermark while holding the check to the light.


In this official sentence, the word including modifies the far-away noun a series of printed instructions because per the context of the sentence, this is the only noun entity that including can logically modify.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

egmat

Thanks Shradhha for the example, though I have another question now -> in the above example a noun that including is modifying is separated by a whole that clause. Can a "which" or "that" or other noun modifiers such as "-ed modifiers" or "ing modifier without a comma" do the same? I thought they can be separated only by an essential prepositional phrase acting as an adjectival modifier.

Hello shameekv1989,

You ask a good question. Yes, generally we see that the noun modifier - which, that, verb-ed or verb-ing modifier - jumps the preceding prepositional phrase modifier to modify a slightly far-away noun. Why such a modification become possible? It is so because the modifier that is jumped over modifier the same noun entity that the far-away noun modifier is meant to modify. Also, the jumped over modifier cannot be placed anywhere else in the sentence. So, these two factors make the far-away modification possible.


Now, the thing to note is that it is not only the preceding prepositional phrase modifiers that can be jumped over. Any modifier can be jumped over that fulfills the two criteria mentioned above. The same is the case in the official sentence I mentioned in my previous response. The modifier that the company... is the noun modifier that modifies the same noun entity the word including is meant to modify. Also, this modifier cannot be placed anywhere else in the sentence. Hence, the far-away modification takes place.

Let me present another famous (or rather infamous) official sentence in which we see the same usage:

Scientists have recently discovered what could be the largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant fungus that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and rootlike tentacles spawned by a single fertilized spore some 10,000 years ago and extending for more than 30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest.


In this correct version of the sentence, both the verb-ed modifier spawned... and the verb-ing modifier extending... jump over the preceding that clause - that is an... - to modify the far-away noun a giant fungus.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

In Option D, Isn't "including" working as a present participle ? and as per that rule, it would be modifying subject of the previous tense which is "female cowbirds" and that would be wrond.

In Option C, "those" clearly refers to the noun "nests" and hence clarifies the meaning.

Hence, Answer should be option C.

Assumption-: I am assuming the intended meaning of the sentence is that female cowbirds lay eggs in the nests of other birds and those nests could be of warblers, vireos, flycatchers... etc.

Please clarify where I am going wrong with this.

Hello, Suryanshi. Your query reminds me of something GMATNinja often says in his SC posts, namely that you sometimes have to read each part with a literal interpretation, at face value, rather than with your mind already made up. My take on each of the following below:


Analysis: What is a singular female cowbird doing as the subject of the main clause when the possessive pronoun their is used immediately before? This option will not work.


Analysis: I struck this one at about the same time as option (A), not even bothering to read beyond the first three words.


Analysis: People talk this way all the time, and I cannot argue that your interpretation is incorrect. The problem is that, taken in a literal sense, those of could also refer to eggs, as in, female cowbirds... lay up to 40 eggs a year, including [the eggs] of warblers, vireos, flycatchers, and thrushes. How nice of the cowbirds to take on the labor duties of the other birds! See how silly that is? Of course, no bird can lay eggs on behalf of other pregnant birds, but grammatically speaking, the second interpretation makes just as much sense as the first. For more on -ing modifiers, I would suggest reading this article. In terms of this question and answer choice, the ambiguity of meaning rules it out.


Analysis: Now the issue has been worked out, with the -ing modifier reaching back to in the nests of other birds. Again, the -ing modifier is much more flexible than a "touch rule" would lead you to believe. (Please refer to the article I linked to above.)


Analysis: There is no need for a passive construct in this sentence, and the phrase about eggs here does not clearly or logically deliver on the setup of the introductory phrase, Unable to build nests or care for their young. You need to know what or whom their refers to, and female cowbirds should be front and center in the main clause.

I hope that helps. If you need further clarification, please ask.

- Andrew

I have a question!

If one of the options was the following sentence, which option would you choose?

female cowbirds lay up to 40 eggs a year in the nests of other birds including those of

Hello, raravinth. To answer your question, I would still choose the original correct answer over the proposed revision above. Take a look at the two sentences side by side, and you will see why:

1) Unable to build nests or care for their young, female cowbirds lay up to 40 eggs a year in the nests of other birds, including warblers, vireos, flycatchers, and thrushes.
2) Unable to build nests or care for their young, female cowbirds lay up to 40 eggs a year in the nests of other birds, including those of warblers, vireos, flycatchers, and thrushes.

Since those of is used in place of the nests of, we have added nothing more than a redundancy.

3) Unable to build nests or care for their young, female cowbirds lay up to 40 eggs a year in the nests of other birds, including the nests of warblers, vireos, flycatchers, and thrushes.

We already know from the earlier version of the sentence that cowbirds lay eggs in other nests, we just need to know which bird nests, rather than be reminded that cowbirds lay eggs in other nests.

I hope that makes sense. If not, I would be happy to discuss the question further.

- Andrew

Unable to build nests or care for their young, a female cowbird lays up to 40 eggs a year in the nests of other birds, including warblers, vireos, flycatchers, and thrushes.

The pronoun ''their'' implies that the subject is ''plural'' in nature. Since (A) and (B) implies the presence of a singular subject, we can eliminate (A) and (B).

(C) female cowbirds use the nests of other birds to lay up to 40 eggs a year, including those of - the pronoun ''those'' has two logical antecedents: ''birds'' and ''eggs''.
(D) female cowbirds lay up to 40 eggs a year in the nests of other birds, including - has no error. Hence, (D) is the right answer choice.
(E) up to 40 eggs a year are laid by female cowbirds in the nests of other birds, including - since the clause preceding the underlined portion is a noun modifier, we need to have a noun immediately succeeding the underlined portion.