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Understanding Parallelism Updated on: 10 Dec 2019, 07:15
Originally posted by deekshajuneja on 10 Dec 2019, 05:32.
Last edited by deekshajuneja on 10 Dec 2019, 07:15, edited 1 time in total.
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Hello Everyone,
I was reading a book on parallelism to understand it better as I got a very poor score in SC and wanted to improve it.
In the book I came across two sentences:

Ralph likes BOTH THOSE WHO are popular AND WHO are not. (Wrong)
Ralph likes BOTH THOSE WHO are popular AND THOSE WHO are not. (Right)

I don't understand why the first sentence is not parallel.
First I thought it was because Ralph likes WHO are not is not a complete sentence but Ralph likes THOSE WHO are not is also not a complete sentence.
The explanation given by the book is that the first one does not make sense.

It would be extremely helpful if someone can help me understand this concept.

Regards,
Deeksha

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Understanding Parallelism 10 Dec 2019, 21:17
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deekshajuneja
Ralph likes THOSE WHO are not is also not a complete sentence.
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Hi Deeksha, thought I will mention that the above sentence actually means:

Ralph likes those who are not (popular).
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Understanding Parallelism 10 Dec 2019, 23:56
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EducationAisle
deekshajuneja
Ralph likes THOSE WHO are not is also not a complete sentence.
Hi Deeksha, thought I will mention that the above sentence actually means:

Ralph likes those who are not (popular).
Show more

I think the same can be applied to the first sentence.
It doesn't really solve my problem but thank you so much for your response.

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Understanding Parallelism 11 Dec 2019, 02:00
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Hi Deeksha

When assessing parallelism, it helps to think in terms of opening and closing brackets, much like a mathematical expression, to check if all parts make sense.

Let me label the sentences as follows:

(A) Ralph likes BOTH THOSE WHO are popular AND WHO are not. (Wrong)
(B) Ralph likes BOTH THOSE WHO are popular AND THOSE WHO are not. (Right)

In (B), the brackets are applied after the word "both", which is to say, it reads as below:

Ralph likes BOTH (THOSE WHO are popular AND THOSE WHO are not).

Here, clearly, the individual items inside the brackets (which form the list) are parallel ("those who X" and "those who Y") in terms of logic as well as grammatical construction.

In order to achieve the same effect in (A1), I must apply the brackets after "those" and not "both", since if I apply the brackets after "both", the items of the list inside the bracket are not parallel. This is illustrated below:

(A1) Ralph likes BOTH THOSE (WHO are popular AND WHO are not). Items of the list are parallel - "who X" and "who Y"
(A2) Ralph likes BOTH (THOSE WHO are popular AND WHO are not). Items of the list are not parallel - "those who X" and "who Y"

(A1) is the only construction which satisfies parallelism. However, the construct "Ralph likes both those" is incorrect as it must be followed by a plural noun and not by the "X and Y" construct as in (A1).

eg: Both these boys are good football players.

Hope this clarifies.

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