V32-06

Question

George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company,  whose first camera made photography accessible to the average person, wanted a company name that was short, with easy pronunciation, and not linked to anything .

A. whose first camera made photography accessible to the average person, wanted a company name that was short, with easy pronunciation, and not linked to anything
B. which made the first camera that made photography accessible to the average person, wanted a company name that was short, with easy pronunciation, and not linked to anything
C. whose first camera made photography accessible to the average person, wanted a company name that was short, easy to pronounce, and not linked to anything
D. whose first camera made photography accessible to the average person, wanted a company name that was short, was easy to pronounce, and not linked to anything
E. which made the first camera that made photography accessible to the average person, wanted a company name that was short, easy to pronounce, and was not linked to anything

souvik101990 · Answer

Official Solution:

George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company,  whose first camera made photography accessible to the average person, wanted a company name that was short, with easy pronunciation, and not linked to anything .

A. whose first camera made photography accessible to the average person, wanted a company name that was short, with easy pronunciation, and not linked to anything
B. which made the first camera that made photography accessible to the average person, wanted a company name that was short, with easy pronunciation, and not linked to anything
C. whose first camera made photography accessible to the average person, wanted a company name that was short, easy to pronounce, and not linked to anything
D. whose first camera made photography accessible to the average person, wanted a company name that was short, was easy to pronounce, and not linked to anything
E. which made the first camera that made photography accessible to the average person, wanted a company name that was short, easy to pronounce, and was not linked to anything

Let's review our answer options. The answers are split on how the dependent clause should be worded-should the sentence use whose or which? The answer choices are also divided around different ways of wording the three characteristics of the company name.

Let's start with the whose/which issue. "Which" is a relative pronoun used to create non-essential relative clauses, and it used with entities and objects. Relative clauses should almost always "touch" the item they are modifying. "Which made the first camera that made photography accessible to the average person" is correctly modifying the Eastman Kodak Company. However, it is a wordy, awkward clause. "Which made the first camera that made photography" does not practice concision. Is there a better option? At first glance, "whose" might seem wrong because we know "whose" comes from "who," which is used only with people. However, "whose" is the only relative possessive pronoun in English, so it can be used with people, animals, groups, entities, and inanimate objects. "Whose first camera made photography accessible to the average person" is modifying the Eastman Kodak Company, which is a correct usage. This clause is much more concise than the "which" clause while still providing the same information. Options B and E cannot be the best answers.

To make our sentence a little easier to read, let's temporarily remove the non-essential clauses: "founder of the Eastman Kodak Company" and "whose first camera made photography accessible to the average person."

Now, our sentence reads "George Eastman wanted a company name that was short, with easy pronunciation, and not linked to anything."

The three characteristics of the company name are listed in a series, so parallel structure will be important. Each item in the series should be able to stand alone. Let's look at the three items used in Option A. They are "short," "with easy pronunciation," and "not linked to anything."

George Eastman wanted a company name that was short. (This makes sense.)

George Eastman wanted a company name that was with easy pronunciation. (This does not make sense.) George Eastman wanted a company name that was not linked to anything. (This makes sense.)

The item "with easy pronunciation" is not parallel with the other two items in the series because it cannot be combined with the verb "was". Any option that uses this wording cannot be correct. Options A and B are not the best answers.

All the items in the series need to work with the verb "was." The rest of the answer choices use "easy to pronounce." George Eastman wanted a company name that was easy to pronounce. That makes sense. Since the verb "was" works with each item in the series, it only needs to be used once before the first item. However, it is not wrong (just less concise) to use it before every item in the list. If "was" is used more than once in the series, it must be used before every item in the series to maintain parallel structure. Options D and E use "was" before two items in the series, but not all three. This is not correct parallel structure, so these two choices cannot be the best answer.

We have successfully eliminated four answer choices. Option C is the best answer.

Answer: C

ShivaniD · Answer

Hello,

I have two questions:

1. If 'short, easy to pronounce and not linked to anything' is a parallel list, why has a comma been inserted before 'and'?
2. Doesn't the use of comma+and make the last bit 'not linked to anything' an independent clause, thus warranting the need to repeat 'was' before the phrase?

Thanks a ton for your help!

kanthaliya · Answer

Hi Experts,

I am not able to get the hold of this question. to me Option D looks perfectly fine, and I dont find just consicion as a reason to neglect option E. which seems better than whose, as the camera will be of company not of a person.
Please help me with this Question.

ArtVandaley · Answer

daagh , can whose refer to a company?

daagh · Answer

Darshak! 
Yes, Most certainly. 
'Whose' is a possessive pronoun that can stand for human beings, animals, inanimate things like books or computers, and for that matter any noun. 
See for example: 
if we are talking about animals, you can refer them by simple non-possessive pronouns such as 'which' or 'that'. However, If you try to fix a possessive pronoun for them you can't say 'that's' or 'which's'. 'Whose' is the only word for that.

That is why 'whose' is considered a universal possessive for all nouns.

Unknown_ · Answer

daagh  /  AjiteshArun  /  GMATNinja 
Please help me with the following

Doubt 1 (regarding modifier) :
Can't this sentence be read as "Name, a modifier (ending with Company), a modifier modifying the word "company", wanted....". This way after masking the modifiers, the sentence would become "Name wanted..." which seems correct?

What I am confused about is cant we have a nested modifier?

Doubt 2 (regarding parallelism) :
... wanted a company name that was short, with easy pronunciation, and not linked to anything.

Given that "with easy pronunciation" is encapsulated within quotes in the original sentence, can't it be treated as a modifier modifying "short name"? This way the original list would be correct.

daagh · Answer

Raunaq,

With reference to your first doubt,

Could you please reproduce the sentence you have in your mind so that we can evaluate in totality?

With reference to your second doubt,

In a list containing, say five items, all the second, the third and the fourth items, will be separated by commas. It does not mean that because some of them are encapsulated, they are ignorable. Then the list will turn out to be fractured.

George Eastman, the founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, whose first camera made photography accessible to the average person, wanted a company name that was short, with easy pronunciation, and not linked to anything.
The actual parsing would be "that was (short, with easy pronunciation, and not linked to anything). 
'That was' is common to all the three items 
short, = the first item
With easy pronunciation, = the second item 
Not linked to anything = the third item

In fact, there are actually no modifiers involved in the above list. 
 Of course, one can several modifiers in a list, provided all of the items are modifiers. Therefore, there is no question of masking any of the individual items. 
Takeaway: Do not get trapped in extended perceptions such as commas define modifications. Technically, there are modifiers without any commas .

Unknown_ · Answer

Thanks for the prompt response daagh.

Regarding my first doubt the sentence would be like:
George Eastman,   wanted a company name that was short, with easy pronunciation, and not linked to anything.
  indicating the masked portion. As the portion "whose first camera made photography accessible to the average person" is modifying the "company".
and the rest of the sentence would be:
George Eastman, wanted a company name that was short, with easy pronunciation, and not linked to anything.

Regarding my second doubt, I agree that the 2nd, 3rd and the 4th item in the list will always be encapsulated by commas. My doubt was specifically related to the penultimate item in the list and the comma before the "and". Now that I recall, that is the "Oxford Comma". This is clear.
Thanks.

SanketB20 · Answer

In this case use of whose won't it distort the meaning of sentence ? It will now mean that company's 1st camera itself addressed this issue , on the other hand the meaning of sentence by using which indicates the company was first in market to get this change, which is more logical

V32-06

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