Where once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English

Question

Where once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members by supporting  the imposition of an alien tax on immigrant workers, after 1897 the United Mine Workers made a determined effort to enlist Italian and Slavs in its ranks.

(A) Where once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members by supporting

(B) Where once the union acquiesced to its English-speaking members' prejudice for the support of

(C) While once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members in support of

(D) While once the union acquiesced to its English-speaking members' prejudice in supporting

(E) While once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members in its supporting of

TommyWallach · Accepted Answer

Hey All,

I wanted to weigh in on this one, though people are saying a lot of the right things, to make one clear point:

People keep saying "Where once" is BETTER than "while once". This is not the issue. "While once" means NOTHING. It is not an idiom. It is 100% wrong. You can't say "While once..." with ANYTHING after it. It's wrong. "Where once" is an odd English idiom, by which I mean there's no good reason we decided "where once" could start a sentence in which we're describing how things used to be one way and then changed, but that's how it is. "While once" doesn't mean anything.

Hope that puts this issue to rest! : )

-tommy

daagh · Answer

The question is whether ‘ while ’ is used as a time - marker or as a contrast - marker. IMO, ‘ while ’ is used as a contrast - marker in the context, meaning ‘whereas’. Of course in A, the word ‘where’ may be used literarily to mark contrast, but that usage is still vulnerable to criticism of ambiguity.

But the clincher in A is the use of the dynamic phrase, ‘by supporting’, a subtly superior expression compared to the use of ‘in support of’ in C; the acquiescence itself results by supporting rather than in the support.

Of course, this is skating on too thin ice. All the same, we have to accept A as the choice.

Minheequang · Answer

IMO  A

Where  is better than  while , I think, because  while  describes a continuous action, but here in the context, this is an momentary action

Where once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members by supporting the imposition of an alien tax on immigrant workers, after 1897 the United Mine Workers made a determined effort to enlist Italians and Slavs in its ranks.
(A) Where once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members by supporting --> best.  Where  is correct. past perfect tense also appropriate describes an action happened before another action in the past. The original meaning is:  The union supported the imposition of tax ... to acquiesce to the prejudices of its ...  
(B) Where once the union acquiesced to it English-speaking members’ prejudice for the support of --> past simple is not good enough. Besides, this choice means that  the union agrees to the prejudice that it will support the imposition of tax ...  --> distorting original meaning
(C) While once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members in support of --> while  is flawed, same distorted meaning as B
(D) While once the union acquiesced to its English-speaking members’ prejudice in supporting -->same errors as C's. Past tense is also flawed
(E) While once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members in its supporting of -->same errors as C's. Besides,  in its supporting of  is more wordy

chetan2u · Answer

hi,
 i feel the usage of where is not wrong here....
 and what stands out in favour of A is the usage of 'by supporting'...
 ask a ques' how had the union acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members?'
 and the ans would be 'the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members by supporting  the imposition of an alien tax on immigrant workers' and not in supporting...
 only A follows it

daagh · Answer

Reading the ext, we can surmise that 
1. The union succumbed to the pressure of the English speaking members.
2. The English speaking members wanted no alien workers to enter and so they pressured the union to impose a tax on alien immigrants other than English-speaking
3. Still, after 1897, the United Mine workers wanted to enlist alien workers such as the Italians and the Slavs
You can see that there does exist a contrast in the context. ' While ' does indicate this element in this topic IMO.

That said, choice C which uses the appropriate past perfect tense to describe an earlier phenomenon of the two events and which uses the forthright expression ‘in support of’ rather than the wordy in ‘its supporting of’ is a clear winner.

The use of ‘ where ’ in the place of ‘ while ’ is acceptable, I suppose, if some one is writing poetry, in which one can get away with anything under a poetic license

rohu27 · Answer

I have a doubt here abt the past perfect tense used in C.

the word 'after 1987' clearly shows what took place before it. so we know 'the union acquiesced to its English-speaking members’ prejudice ' happened before.
why do we need a past perfect tense here then?
Someone please clarify.

vyassaptarashi · Answer

According to me, construction of the word support is the crucial factor in this sentence. Option B, D, and E have awkward constructions: for the support of, in supporting, and in its supporting of respectively.

Therefore, we can shortlist A and C.

Now, closer scrutiny of option C reveals that ‘the prejudices were regarding to the imposition of the align taxes ( acquiesced to the prejudices in support of)’… whereas the sentence suggests that support to the impositions of taxes is the action taken by the union, hence, “acquiesced to the prejudice by supporting taxes” is the correct expression.

Moreover, if we reverse the first part of the sentence, before the comma, then Option C becomes “ In support of imposition of taxes, the union had acquiesced to the prejudices” . This construction becomes awkward. It should be – to support/by supporting the imposition of taxes, the union agreed to the prejudices. We have one of the correct expressions in “A”.

Also, "while" is normally used to show the contrast, which is not there in the sentence. I have no idea about whether, “where” is correct or not but “while” is definitely wrong here.

On the basis all above mentioned information, The answer should be “A”

daagh · Answer

Yes. Although the use of  ‘by supporting’  is more forthright as far as usage is concerned, all that good work is lost by the inappropriate use of ‘where’. To break a classical rule that  where  is used to refer to a place, is weird; In that case, why do we need that rule at all or when will we ever use that rule? Rules are evolved to be followed and not to be broken at will.

According to the dictionary, ‘ Whereas ’ is the correct synonym for ‘ while ’. The contrast of one accepting something and another going against it is more than explicit in the text. To say that a contrast does not exist is not acceptable. A is a mismatch solely because of this lacuna.

Still my kudos are there for those who chose to dissect this issue threadbare, though
I may beg to differ with their opinions.

AbhiAtCrackVerbal · Answer

'Where' in this case refers to a 'place in time' i.e. 'Whereas in the past the union had...'-would be the longer construction of this sentence. That's the reason where can be used in this sentence and is correct.

raviram80 · Answer

Hi All,

could someone please explain the use of where in the beginning of sentence compared to while and why is that wrong here?

I thought of C

Thanks,

Ravi

yogesh1984 · Answer

(C) While once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members  in support of  bold part is the problem..try to read in the context of the whole sentence and compare with option A.You should get better clarity...

summer101 · Answer

Hi Experts,
Can someone explain this sentence please? Usage of "Where" in this case doesnt seem to be consistent with explanation in most of the books.

HarishLearner · Answer

Since Where is followed by Once, it can indicate a particular point in time.

While means  when something was happening at the same time .

Title of a poem by H.P. Lovecraft --> "In a Sequester’d Providence Churchyard Where Once Poe Walk’d"

(meaning at one point in the past)

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

The only possible answer is A. One quick way to see that is to look at the ends of the choices. The only choice with a modifier that is both valid and unambiguous is A. The union acquiesced to the prejudices of its members. How? By supporting the tax. We might  try  to make a case for "in supporting," but it doesn't make the meaning clear. Since "in" could modify "prejudice(s)," C and D could be read to mean that only the English-speaking members, and not the union itself, supported the tax. E tries to fix the problem by saying "its supporting," it just doesn't make sense to say that the union "acquiesced in its supporting." B is out of the question, since "for supporting" doesn't work with "acquiesced" at all.

As for "where," there are some valid ways to use "where" without referring to a place. (Almost every rule of grammar or usage has one or more exceptions!) This is exactly one of those cases. It actually works better than "while" when we are trying to show change over time. Since "while" can also be used to refer to simultaneous events, it can be confusing to use "while" to contrast different time frames. In such cases, the idiom "where once" provides a good alternative.

AkshdeepS · Answer

"Where" should only refer to a place IMO. So A and B are out.

E is awkward. From C and D, C looks good, but IMO we don't require "had" as we have a specified time "1897"

D is passive.

I would like to have some expert view.  VeritasPrepKarishma  , Please help.

(A) Where once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members by supporting

(B) Where once the union acquiesced to it English-speaking members’ prejudice for the support of

(C) While once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members in support of

(D) While once the union acquiesced to its English-speaking members’ prejudice in supporting

(E) While once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English-speaking members  in its supporting of

KarishmaB · Answer

Though often used to indicate a place, it is not necessary that "where" must refer to a place only. e.g. Where do you stand on this question? (talks about position or circumstance)
A better way to contrast would be "whereas" but we don't have that option.

Where once the union had acquiesced... by supporting the imposition of ...
While once the union had acquiesced ... in support of the imposition of ...

One can acquiesce by supporting the plan.. - correct
or one can acquiesce in the plan... - correct

"acquiesce in support of the plan" is not logical. Hence (C) is not correct.

Of the given options, answer would be (A)

P.S. - When you talk about two distinct past periods/points in time, you use past perfect. If the exact sequence before/after/dates etc are mentioned, you MAY skip the use of past perfect but its use is not incorrect.

Bambi2021 · Answer

"Where once" made me think of another question that exploited an expression of space to refer to a time period.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-london-th ... 30177.html

"In a London"...

This metaphor of time as space is a common trait in languages:

"According to the spatial temporal metaphor, we take time as an immovable container. At this time the observer is moving from the position projected by the past time to the position projected by the present time till the position projected by the future time."

From: "A Contrastive Study of Time as Space Metaphor in English and Chinese."

Posted from my mobile device

IanStewart · Answer

This is not true. I'll quote no less an authority on language than America's Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman:

“So, while once we asked how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?"

There aren't many occasions where we might say "while once", but there's nothing wrong with the phrase.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Where once the union had acquiesced to the prejudices of its English

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