My child has better hygiene than my sister's children......I

Question

My child has better hygiene than my sister's children......I learnt that this is correct.....I am unable to understand the structure as I find hygiene and my sister's children not parallel...(Is it better X than Y or something else?)kindly shed some light on this...

anstance5 · Answer

Actually I don't think the relation has anything to do with the concept of "hygiene": it can just as easily be "My children have better hygiene than my sister's children". The relation is between the speaker's child / children and her sister's children. So the verb can shift between "have" and "has" based on singular vs plural. I don't see how the rest of the sentence can really ever cause an issue otherwise.

Just my 2 cents. If there's any hole in my reasoning, I welcome comments. As I can benefit from it too :-)

(Thanks in advance.)

(Thanks in advance.)

vivesomnium · Answer

Just as mentioned above, it is not the hygeines which are being compared, it is the children- if it was:
my child's hygiene is better than my sister's children
it would be wrong, as then hygiene is being compared to children . t should have been - that of my sister's children.(that standing for hygeine)
in the current form, the sentence is comparing- my children's having hygeine with my sister's children having hygeine. hence it is correct usage

contacttoakhil · Answer

My child has better hygiene than my sister's children have ]. So we can observe further examples such as: My child has better command over English than my nephew . My child has better cell phone than any other children in my family . I hope now it makes sense for you

nashy2098 · Answer

It makes better sense now...thanks... 8-)

contacttoakhil · Answer

Your welcome nashy!! any time

EducationAisle · Answer

Bit unlikely (though not ruled out, only if no better alternative exists) that you would find such an example on GMAT, for the very reason you have mentioned. What you are more likely to find on GMAT is:

My child has better hygiene than my sister's children do.

OR

My child has better hygiene than my sister's children have.

contacttoakhil · Answer

Yea I agree. Constructions like that are not preferred but even I have noticed these kind of sentences in OG. Actually according to them it does not create any ambiguity so they avoid it sometimes.

My child has better hygiene than my sister's children......I

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