Sukant2010 wrote:
The defense lawyer and witnesses portrayed the accused as a victim of circumstance, his life uprooted by the media pressure to punish someone in the case.
(A) circumstance, his life
(B) circumstance, and his life
(C) circumstance, and his life being
(D) circumstance; his life
(E) circumstance: his life being
Hi all,
I was mainly confused between two options in this question. Please elaborate on your reason for choosing an answer.
Responding to a pm:
Note that "his life uprooted by the media pressure to punish someone in the case." and "his life being uprooted by the media pressure to punish someone in the case." are not independent clauses because they have no verb in them.
The following are independent clauses and one of these is what you need with the coordinating conjunction ('and') and semi colon:
"his life was uprooted by the media pressure to punish someone in the case." or
"his life was being uprooted by the media pressure to punish someone in the case."
Accuracy wise, the use of 'being' is still suspect. 'Being' is not used to describe a state; it is used to describe an ongoing action such as 'the tree is being uprooted'.
Colon is used if you need to give a list and hence, is not suitable here. So options (B), (C), (D) and (E) are wrong.
Only option (A) describes circumstance suitably using the modifier "his life uprooted by the media pressure to punish someone in the case."
I still don't understand why (B) is incorrect - in your explanation, you say that (B) is incorrect because there was a colon (which there isn't).