Verb-noun agreement while maintaining parallelism

Question

In the following sentence:

Incorrect form:  Jeremy claims that Naomi's beliefs are superstitions and detrimental to society

superstitions  is not parallel with  detrimental to society

One way to correct the sentence:
  Jeremy claims that Naomi's beliefs are superstitions and  detriments  to society  (agrees with noun-verb form)

Is the following also correct:
  Jeremy claims that Naomi's beliefs are superstitions and detriment to  societies

I am not sure if this changes the meaning of the sentence. The form appears OK to me. Let me know what I'm missing out.

vv65 · Answer

It is not correct, mainly because  detriments to societies  isn't standard language. In your words, the form isn't correct.

We could rephrase the sentence this way:
 Jeremy claims that Naomi's beliefs ARE superstitions and ARE detrimental to society. 
In this version the parallelism is acceptable and so is the form.

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Archit3110 · Answer

when making the sentence parallel its important to have the verb part of the sentence in same form 
the option you have assumed to be correct by changing ' societies ' is wrong...

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  KD1995 . I agree with the response posted above by  vv65 . The parallel instances of  are  are the safest bet. There is another way I could think of the sentence appearing as a standalone CORRECT answer—keep in mind, you would NEVER be asked to choose from more than one perfectly legitimate (clear and concise) option.

1) Jeremy claims that Naomi's beliefs are superstitions and are a detriment to society.

Note that there are still parallel instances of  are , just that the adjective  detrimental  has been shifted into a noun form to parallel the earlier noun  superstitions . Also, it is fine to refer to a plural noun as  a    to refer to that noun collectively. Another example would be a sentence such as  Their contributions are an asset to the culture.  It would be incorrect to say,  ...  assets  to the culture .

- Andrew

VerbalBot · Answer

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Verb-noun agreement while maintaining parallelism

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Verb-noun agreement while maintaining parallelism

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