Each of Hemingway’s wives—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha

Hi Valt , belated welcome to GMAT Club.

His is a possessive pronoun. Hemingway's is a possessive noun.
Possessive pronouns are allowed to have possessive nouns as antecedents.
Correct: Jerry's frequent absences hurt his grade for the class.

I am not sure whether you are also relying on "possessive poison," which does not apply here.
Under the possessive poison rule, a possessive noun cannot not be the antecedent for a non-possessive pronoun.

What many people believe about possessive poison on the GMAT is not accurate.
In another post, I wrote,
On the GMAT, as long as meaning is clear, both object and subject pronouns may have a possessive noun as an antecedent.

In that post I explained that possessive poison is not a hard-and-fast rule on the GMAT.
I included a few examples of official questions in which the correct answer contained a subject or object pronoun whose antecedent was possessive.

You can find that post here.

I hope that helps.
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Dear experts,
mikemcgarry IanStewart VeritasKarishma daagh EMPOWERgmatRichC DmitryFarber generis

1. In case of option C, I am unable to understand the placement of "all". Doesn't placement of "all" before strong associate "all" with strong?

2. Option B can be simplified to: Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh were strong and interesting women...
In this option, I do agree that the fact that these women are Hemingway's wives is an essential information. Hence, putting that information between commas is not correct. However, compared to use of "all strong" phrase, we could neglect the "essential information" argument.

@anikhet

C) Hemingway’s wives—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh—were all strong and interesting women,

This is the main clause of the sentence that is followed by the adjectival modifier (different is an adjective) following it, which modifies the four wives of Hemingway. If you parse it slightly differently, forgetting the appositive names listed between the dashes, you will get the following version.

All Hemingway’s wives were strong and interesting women, very different from the often-pallid women who populate his novels.

In the context, the word 'all' modifies the plural wives. This slightly twisted structure is quite acceptable, kind of a literary academic license given to writers to encourage variety.,I suppose.

Second, the SV error in B namely, "each of Hemingway's wives were strong" is too glaring to ignore. So C. the answer
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Dear daagh,
Thank you for the explanation.

In case of option B, the phrase "each of ..." is between em-dash. So I considered that "were" is as per the 4 wives.
As per my understanding the sentence structure is: "A, B, C and D were ..." --> and "each of them ..." is just a modifier not governing "were".

aniket16c That's right--the part between em dashes is not part of the sentence core. The list of names is the subject and "were" is the verb. There's no error there. The problem with B is that it matches "each" with "wives." I can say that each of Hemingway's wives was interesting. In that case, "of Hemingway's wives" is just a modifier, and each one is interesting. But "each of them Hemingway's wives" is saying that each ONE of the women was Hemingway's WIVES. This modifier is trying to match a singular noun with a plural. That won't work.
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Can somebody explain why E is wrong ?

Posted from my mobile device

Hi aarushisingla,

Focus on the last few words in that option:

every one of Hemingway’s wives were

The subject is every one, which is singular, but the verb were is plural. Because the subject and verb don't agree, we can take E out.
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Thankyou for your response.
But isn’t the subject strong and interesting women just like in D.

Hi aarushisingla,

Here are the three options C-E:

(C) Hemingway’s wives—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh—were all strong and interesting women,

(D) Strong and interesting women—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh—each a wife of Hemingway, was

(E) Strong and interesting women—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh—every one of Hemingway’s wives were

In this question, the dashes are just like commas. We can remove them to check the structure of the rest of the sentence.

(D1) Strong and interesting women, each a wife of Hemingway, was

(E1) Strong and interesting women, every one of Hemingway’s wives were

Here are two ways to check what each a wife of Hemingway is:
1. Each a wife of Hemingway can be only a modifier. It cannot be a subject. That is, we cannot combine it with a verb.

Each a wife of Hemingway was... ← Can we say each a wife was? No, and therefore this is incorrect.

But every one of Hemingway's wives can be a subject. That is, we can combine it with a verb.

Every one of Hemingway's wives was... ← Can we say every one was? Yes, we can, and therefore this is fine.

2. Do you see the comma there after Hemingway in option D (in between each a wife of Hemingway and was)? That is another way to recognize that each a wife of Hemingway is a modifier. That is why option D can be read as:

(D2) Strong and interesting women, each a wife of Hemingway, was

In option E, however, there is no comma in between every one of Hemingway's wives and were. This leaves us with something that (a) is capable of acting as a subject and (b) is not surrounded by commas the way a modifier in that position should be.

(E2) Strong and interesting women, every one of Hemingway’s wives were

Here it is strong and interesting women that is the modifier.
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Can the "his" possessive "hemingway's" in (C)?

Hi lakshya14,

Both his and Hemingway's are possessives. However, we should not worry too much about this issue.
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Each of Hemingway’s wives—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh—were strong and interesting women, very different from the often pallid women who populate his novels.


(A) Each of Hemingway’s wives—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh—were strong and interesting women, X

(B) Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh—each of them Hemingway’s wives—were strong and interesting women, X

(C) Hemingway’s wives—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh—were all strong and interesting women, CORRECT

(D) Strong and interesting women—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh—each a wife of Hemingway, was X
-terribly wordy

(E) Strong and interesting women—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh—every one of Hemingway’s wives were X
-just terribly wordy
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Why is D wrong here? Each/Every always take a singular noun. Is it because the subject is strong and interesting? If yes, then what is wrong with A? Is it because the subject is each of Hem's wives?
Please confirm!

Hi errorlogger,

D: The subject is strong and interesting women (plural), but the verb is was (singular)

E: The subject is each of Hemingway’s wives (singular), but the verb is were (plural)
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>>> "Each" is always singular, though. Each is often followed by a prepositional phrase ending in a plural word (Each of the cars), thus confusing the verb choice. Each, too, is always singular and requires a singular verb.

The adjective each is always followed by a singular noun: each person; each book. When the adjective follows a plural subject, the verb agrees with the subject: They each dress in different styles.

When you say "each of them", you're referring to each individual in a group (them), so you should use a singular verb. That leaves two possibilities: Each of them is used for different purposes.
eg:
- Each of them is used for a different purpose.
- Each of them is used for different purposes.

The first means that each room is itself used for multiple different purposes. The second sentence means that each room is used for a purpose that is different than those of the other rooms.
****

verb spotted: were = P

(A) Each of Hemingway’s wives—HR,PP,MG&MW—were strong and interesting women,
Each of H's wives, subject = S
were, verb = P
S≠V

(B) HR,PP,MG&MW—each of them Hemingway’s wives—were strong and interesting women,
each of them H's wives, subject = P (error with "each of them" should use a singular noun subject)
were, verb = P
construction is wrong.

(C) Hemingway’s wives—HR,PP,MG&MW—were all strong and interesting women,
H's wives, subject = P
were, verb = P
S=V

(D) Strong and interesting women—HR,PP,MG&MW—each a wife of Hemingway, was
Strong and interesting women, subject (women, P noun and an adjective describing the plural noun: Phrase) = P
was, verb = S
S≠V

(E) Strong and interesting women—HR,PP,MG&MW—every one of Hemingway’s wives were
Subject = P
verb= P | S=V
but,
>>> All is with a plural noun + plural verb while Every is with a singular noun + singular verb. Every can also suggest “without exception"
every one of H's WIFE (singular noun required): construction error.

Hi expert,

Could you explain more on this structure "each of them one of Hemmingway's wives" ?

I don't understand how these 2 phrase (each of them // one of H's wives)can be attached together like this?

Foi2Evei2

When we use "each" to form a modifier, it should be followed by an adjective or noun that applies to each individual in the list.

The conference featured an impressive roster of speakers, each of them a world-renowned expert in at least one field.
In my two years at the company, I had five different managers, each one worse than the last.
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GMATNinja why is B wrong?

Chitra657

"Each" is singular, and refers to one individual at a time. So each of them can have been ONE of his wives, but they can't each have been his wives. This would be basically be saying that each individual woman was ALL of his wives.
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