Parallel Construction

Parallel Construction Parallel Construction Parallel Construction By Maeve Maddox A common writing fault is faulty parallelism. In writing, parallelism is a similarity of construction of adjacent word groups. Faulty parallelism results when words, phrases, or clauses are mismatched. Here are some examples of faulty parallelism: Hiking is more fun than to swim. Hiking is a verbal noun. To swim is an infinitive. Better: Hiking is more fun than swimming. To hike is more fun than to swim. Sandra Bullock is beautiful and has intelligence. Beautiful is an adjective; has intelligence is a clause. Better: Sandra Bullock is beautiful and intelligent. Sandra Bullock has beauty and intelligence. Even though we have had peaceful protest, there has been protest that was violent, even today. This sentence from a student essay about a tradition of violence in the United States has several problems. The first clause begins with a true subject, we, while the second clause begins with there. The delayed subject of the second clause is protest. Having protest as the object of a verb in the first clause and the subject of the verb in the second clause is awkward. More imbalance results from the mix of past and present verb tenses and the tacked-on phrase even today. Even though seems to call for a stronger contrast than what follows. Better: Even though we have had peaceful protests, violent protests have been common and continue today. The nightly news is full of stories about missing children or stories that someone tried to abduct some children at a bus stop. This example is also from a student essay. The structural imbalance results from the fact that the first storystories about missing children is qualified by an adjective phrase, while the second storystories that someone tried to abduct some children at a bus stop is qualified by an adjective clause. Better: The nightly news is full of stories about missing children and child abductors. The nightly news is full of stories about children who have disappeared from their homes or who have been abducted at bus stops. A recent Apple ad for the iPad contains an example of faulty parallelism in the list of words interspersed with a series of screenshots: delicious current learning playful literary artful friendly productive scientific magical All but one of the words is a descriptive adjective. Learning is a verbal noun. The adjective that would fit with the other adjectives is educational. Perhaps the copywriter felt that the word educational is too stodgy for an Apple ad targeting fun-loving consumers. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Writing Basics category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:What is the Difference Between "These" and "Those"?Peace of Mind and A Piece of One's Mind48 Writing Prompts for Middle School Kids

Quotes from Gray Panther Leader Maggie Kuhn

Quotes from Gray Panther Leader Maggie Kuhn Maggie Kuhn is best known for founding the organization often called the Gray Panthers, a social activist organization raising issues of justice and fairness for older Americans. She is credited with the passage of laws prohibiting forced retirement and with reform in health care and nursing home oversight. She worked for many years with the Young Womens Christian Association (YWCA) in Cleveland and then with the United Presbyterian Church in New York City, doing programming for social causes including on race, womens rights, and the elderly.  (Note: the organization called Gray Panthers was officially known at first as the Consultation of Older and Younger Adults for Social Change.) Selected Maggie Kuhn Quotations   My goal is to do something outrageous every day. Few people know how to be old. Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind- even if your voice shakes.   We who are old have nothing to lose! We have everything to gain by living dangerously! We can initiate change without jeopardizing jobs or family. We can be the risk-takers.   A healthy community is one in which the elderly protect, care for, love and assist the younger ones to provide continuity and hope   Were missing a historical perspective that older people can provide. My generation has to be heard and heeded   Learning and sex until rigor mortis. When you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what you have to say.   There is a pervasive societal bias in the U.S., which contends that old age is a disaster and a disease.... On the contrary, it is a part of the continuum of life and oug   Ã‚  Weve had enormous success all out of proportion to our numbers. We have set a pace. Weve been very outspoken in our positions, and weve caught the attention of the media. Power should not be concentrated in the hands of so few, and powerlessness in the hands of so many.   Many things started by a person disappear when the person dies, but Id consider my job a failure if that happened.   [What] I dream of and yearn for is that the Gray Panthers will continue to be on the cutting edge of social change, and that the young and old together will continue to work for a just, humane and peaceful world.   about a protest in Washington, DC:  The police came on their horses and rode right into us, you know. That was frightening, those enormous beasts and those hard shoes. A blow could kill you.   about the name Gray Panthers:  It’s a fun name. There’s a certain militancy, rather than just a docile acceptance of what our country’s doing. Old age is not a disease- it is strength and survivorship, triumph over all kinds of vicissitudes and disappointments, trials and illnesses.   Im an old woman. I have gray hair, many wrinkles, and arthritis in both hands. And I celebrate my freedom from bureaucratic restraints that once held me. The worst indignity is to be given a bedpan by a stranger who calls you by your first name.   If you are not prepared, retirement at 65 makes you a non-person. It deprives you of the sense of community that has previously defined your life. By the year 2020, the year of perfect vision, the old will outnumber the young.   Old people as elders of the tribe should be seeking and safeguarding the survival of the tribe- the larger public interest Men and women approaching retirement age should be recycled for public service work, and their companies should foot the bill. We can no longer afford to scrap-pile people. There must be a goal at every stage of life! There must be a goal!   What she wanted on her tombstone:   Here lies Maggie Kuhn under the only stone she left unturned.