Usage of the idiom - as

Hi mike,

I am referring to manhattan SC 6th edition guide 8, page number: 141, topic: as.
By looking at the sentence, even I understood that the error is singular/plural mismatch. But, i was unsure why that was it mentioned in idioms chapter.

Please help.
Thank you in advance.


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Dear mischiefmanaged,

I'm happy to respond.

Yes, that is a little unusual. Yes, the problem is 100% the singular/plural mismatch: that's precisely why it's wrong, and they say as much in the parenthetical mark following the sentence.

I may be assuming here, but I think they were trying to make a subtle point about the nature of that idiom. You see, if we have a sentence of the form A is/are B, that is a kind of "equation" between A and B, and obviously there has to be matching between A and B on a number of levels (singular/plural, logical, etc.) Well, the idiom A [verb] as B is also a kind of equation, and in similar fashion, there needs to be matching between A and B in this case as well. Certainly A and B have to match in terms of singular & plural, and there has to be a basic logical congruence to the roles. A sentence of the form "My horse worked as a plumber" is entertaining and humorous, and may be typical of, say, a whimsical children's book, but of course, such a sentence would not come within a 100 miles of the GMAT SC. On the GMAT, A and B must be strictly logically compatible.

Those folks at MGMAT are very smart. That's my guess about why this odd point appears right there in the idiom chapter.

Mike

Thank you so much, Mike


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