5. Reading Obstacles 3: Repetition-Reducing Synonyms

.

It is common not to recognise when a meaning is repeated in different words to avoid sounding repetitious

THE USE OF SYNONYMS TO AVOID SOUNDING REPETITIOUS

Extended writing inevitably requires some of the meanings in it to be mentioned more than once (see 24. Good and Bad Repetition). Mentions after the first are sometimes with the same wording and sometimes with alternative wording of similar meaning, for example a synonym like lone for solitary, reply for response or propose for suggest.

Occasionally, the use of alternative wording is compulsory (see 286. Repeating in Different Words), but often writers can choose. When they do, it is surprising how often an alternative is preferred. The probable reason is a belief that that is better writing style (a belief reflected by computer word processors offering to “highlight repeated words”: see 68. How Computers Get Grammar Wrong). It is possible that this belief explains the large number of synonyms that English has for some common meanings, such as that of “increase” (see 115. Surveying Numerical Data).

Here is an example of how a word’s meaning in a text can be repeated later on in a different way:

(a) Success requires hard work. Yet effort by itself is insufficient.

Although the words hard work and effort might elsewhere mean slightly different things, they here have exactly the same meaning. Sometimes the synonym is a word that normally has a more general meaning than the first-used one, as in this example:

(b) A car was observed leaving the scene of the crime. The vehicle was chased by a member of the public.

Normally, car and vehicle would not be considered synonyms, any more than lion and animal are. However, when they are put together like this in a text (with the more general word second), they come to mean the same.

A more familiar type of repetition with a different word is with a pronoun. In sentence (a), effort could be replaced by this, while in (b) vehicle could be expressed by it. However, repetition with pronouns is less of a problem for readers, and will not feature in the rest of this discussion. For more about pronouns, see 28. Pronoun Errors.

.

READING DIFFICULTIES CAUSED BY WORD CHANGES

Writers’ efforts to avoid repeating particular words can lead to a major reading error by unskilled academic and professional readers: failing to recognize the sameness of the meanings of neighbouring words. This can happen even when both of the words are familiar. Not recognizing this sameness will make it harder to see a link between the different text parts containing it. Moreover, when one of the words is unfamiliar, it will additionally hinder the guessing of that word’s meaning (see 177. How to Guess Meanings in a Text).

The difficulty caused by repetition with synonyms seems, in fact, to be one of the most common reading problems of all. One reason why I say this is that quite a high proportion of reading difficulties reported to me by readers themselves (as described in the technical article in this blog entitled What can learners tell us about their reading problems?) have turned out to involve “same idea in different words”. Secondly, reading comprehension questions focussing on repetition with synonyms are, in my experience, rarely answered well by English learners.

Below is an exercise involving numerous examples of repetition with a synonym. All of them have proved problematic for at least some learners. They are presented partly as evidence of the importance of the problem, and partly as an exercise to improve reading skill. Readers are invited to give it a try.

.

PRACTICE EXERCISE: SYNONYM-RECOGNITION

In the following texts, find as many different examples as you can of a synonym repeating an earlier idea. Answers are provided afterwards.

A. Animal safaris are considered a very glamorous type of holiday outside Africa. Do you think that the image of wildlife observation is justified?

B. In the ancient world, books had to be copied painstakingly by hand, usually by professional scribes skilled in the art.

C. The speed with which countries have accomplished an industrial revolution varies, and there is debate as to the exact chronology of events in particular instances.

D. Marx’s theory of unemployment is not borne out by what happened in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s. Marx’s analysis depended on the standard of living remaining in the long run at subsistence level. In reality, however, America’s real income per head in 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression, was more than double what it had been in 1860.

E. Gap-filling tests are particularly suitable for evaluating memorization. However, too much reliance on this type of approach leads to over-emphasis of this ability. Although rote-learning is essential in most subject areas, it is only one ability and must not be emphasised to the neglect of other, more complex abilities.

.

ANSWERS

In each case, underlined words with the same numbers are being used as synonyms of each other.

A. Animal safaris (1) are considered a very glamorous (2) type of holiday outside Africa. Do you think that the image (2) of wildlife observation (1) is justified?

B. In the ancient world, books had to be copied painstakingly by hand (1), usually by professional scribes skilled in the art (1). Note the importance here of correctly understanding the art. It has the countable meaning of art (= a technique) rather than the uncountable one (= painting, sculpture, design etc).

This variability places art in the category considered in depth in the Guinlist post 43. Noun Countability Clues 4. The use of the with the countable form shows it to be repeating the previously-mentioned technique of copying. The would not be possible with the uncountable form because in this context that form would not be repeating anything and thus could only have a general meaning – a meaning that uncountable nouns cannot express with the (see 110. Nouns without  “the” or “a”). 

C. There is some variation in the speed with which countries have accomplished an industrial revolution (1), and debate exists as to the exact chronology of events in particular instances (1).

D. Marx’s theory (1) of unemployment is not supported by what happened in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s. Marx’s analysis (1) required the standard of living (2) to remain in the long run at subsistence level. In reality, however, America’s real income per head (2) in 1932, which was the worst year of the Great Depression, was more than double what it had been in 1860.

E. Gap-filling tests (1) are especially useful for evaluating memorization (2). However, too much reliance on this type of approach (1) leads to over-emphasis of this ability (2). Although most subjects require a certain amount of rote-learning (2), it is only one ability and must not be emphasised to the neglect of other, more complex abilities.

4. Verbs that Don’t Have to be Passive

.

Some verbs rather unpredictably allow their object to go before them as a subject without needing the passive voice or a “-self” word

THE PASSIVE FORM OF ENGLISH VERBS

Most readers of this blog will know that the passive “voice” is one of the many possible forms of English verbs. In its fundamental version, the verb has the “past” participle ending (-ed or irregular equivalent – see 97. Verb Form Confusions), and follows some form of the “helping” verb BE. The participle in such cases is no longer “past” at all, and would be better named “passive”. Examples of passive verbs (the BE part underlined) are was helped, is understood, were being copied, can be taken and should have been known.

In some cases, BE is replaced by a synonym, especially BECOME or informal GET (cf. get married in 201. Words with Complicated Grammar 1, #4). In certain circumstances, it can be dropped altogether, for example in expressions like the data obtained (see 192. When BE can be Omitted).

Although the passive form is important, some verbs cannot have it at all (see 113. Verbs that cannot be Passive) and some allow it to be replaced by the active in a sentence without changing the positions of other words. It is important to know whether a verb has either of these properties, but unfortunately they are, like the countability of nouns, hard to recognise. This post illustrates the second of them, and lists common verbs in professional writing that have it, as well as some typical meanings that they express.

.

THE NORMAL USE OF PASSIVE VERBS

When we write a statement with a verb that can be passive, there are usually two nouns (or equivalent) involved, and it is our decision about which of them we place before the verb that determines whether or not the passive is needed.

Suppose, for example, we had in mind the two nouns children and socialising and the verb ENJOY. From the meaning of ENJOY, we know that its ordinary “active” form needs as subject a noun saying who experiences enjoyment – obviously children here – and as object a noun saying what gives it – socialising. If children is indeed the noun we plan to say first, then the active form of ENJOY will be needed; otherwise the passive (+ by) will result.

As another example, consider this:

(a) ………… (ASSIST) ………… . 

If we wanted to mention here the two nouns plant growth and sunshine in that order, what form should the verb ASSIST have? Obviously, it is passive is assisted. The reason is that the meaning of ASSIST requires the objects of its active form to be recipients of assistance rather than givers – plant growth here. Once again putting such a noun first necessitates the passive. For additional aspects of active and passive verb meaning, see 21. Active Verbs with Non-Active Meanings and 66. Types of Passive Verb Meaning.

.

VERBS THAT BREAK THE PASSIVE RULE

What we do not often hear is that some verbs do not follow these rules, and can be in an active form even when a noun we expect to be object comes first. In other words, they can nearly always be active. Consider this: 

(b) Obesity is increased by overeating.

(c) Obesity increases with overeating. 

Changing the verb here from passive to active does not also require a change of word order. The only other visible change is in the preposition after the verb (from by to with). We could instead have used through or as a result of, but not by.

There is actually a meaning change too: the passive in sentence (b) clearly says overeating is the cause of obesity, while the active in (c) does not, simply saying instead that it happens at the same time. The passive would be preferred where there was a need to emphasise the causal role of what is said or implied after it, but this need is probably not very frequent or important.

A key point to appreciate is that only some verbs can be kept in the active form regardless of what their subject is, like INCREASE. The verbs ASSIST and ENJOY are not among them. This raises the question of which verbs are like INCREASE and which must sometimes be passive, like ASSIST and ENJOY, and whether there is any rule for recognising each kind. Without an answer to this question, grammar errors are inevitable (see 142. Grammar Errors with Passive Verbs).

Unfortunately, there is no definite rule for recognising verbs with different grammatical properties: although the meaning of a verb is sometimes a clue, dictionaries are the only reliable information source. In a dictionary, verbs like INCREASE are labelled “vt and vi” (verb transitive and intransitive), while verbs like ASSIST and ENJOY are usually just labelled “vt”. Verbs like EXIST, which cannot ever be passive, are “vi“.

The unreliability of verb meanings as a clue to the kind of verb in question is well illustrated by verbs expressing different kinds of “increase” or “decrease”. Although many verbs with these meanings are like INCREASE in allowing a choice about the passive (see below), there are some that are “vi” and hence always need to be active. Common ones are GROW, LEAP, RISE, DECLINE, DROP and FALL.

Nevertheless, it seems better to know than not to know typical meanings of the verbs in question. One useful observation is that verbs in process descriptions are likely to have properties like INCREASE (see 210. Process Descriptions, #1). In addition, verbs ending in -en are very likely to be of this kind. Common ones include BLACKEN, REDDEN, WHITEN, DARKEN, LIGHTEN, BRIGHTEN, BROADEN, DEEPEN, HASTEN, HEIGHTEN, LENGTHEN, WIDEN, STRENGTHEN, WEAKEN, LESSEN, DAMPEN and HASTEN. Two exceptions are intransitive GLISTEN and LISTEN.

Thirdly, verbs needing a -self word in some other European languages quite often (but certainly not always) need to be used without one in English, in the manner of INCREASE (see 268. Types of “-self” Object, #3). Examples are ADVANCE, (A)WAKE, DEVELOP, IMPROVE, MOVE and TURN. For more on ADVANCE, see 261. Words with Complicated Grammar 3, #2. For more on DEVELOP, see 242. Words with Unexpected Grammar 3, #b.

The following general meanings are also notable.

Common Meanings Expressed by Verbs like INCREASE

Start/Finish

BEGIN, COMMENCE, LAUNCH, OPEN, RESUME, START, CEASE, CLOSE, END, FINISH, HALT, STOP, TERMINATE

Increase/Decrease

CONTRACT, DECREASE, DIMINISH, REDUCE, SHRINK, SLOW, ACCELERATE, ACCUMULATE, BUILD UP, EXPAND, EXTEND, IMPROVE, INCREASE, LIFT, MULTIPLY. For more on verbs like this, see 115. Surveying Numerical Data)

Change Location

ADVANCE, MOVE, PASS, PROGRESS, RETURN, SHIFT, TRANSFER

Change State

BOIL, BREAK, BURN, CHANGE, CONDENSE, CONTRACT, COOL DOWN, DEVELOP, DRY, ENLARGE, EVAPORATE, EXPAND, GROW (= cultivate), HEAT UP, IMPROVE, MELT, RELAX, SHRINK, STRETCH, TURN (= become), TURN INTO, WAKE (UP), WARM UP, WORSEN (see 292. Synonym Pairs with Contrasting Grammar 2, #2).

Meet

ASSOCIATE, BOND, COMBINE, CONNECT, JOIN, LINK, MEET, UNITE

Move without Travelling

DIVIDE, MOVE, OPERATE, ROTATE, RUN (= operate), SPIN, STAND UP, STRETCH, TURN (ROUND), TWIST

Gather/Disperse

ACCUMULATE, ADD, ASSEMBLE, BUILD UP, COLLECT, COMBINE, FILL, GATHER, BREAK UP, DISPERSE, DIVIDE, SEPARATE

Continue

CARRY ON, CONTINUE, RESTART, RESUME

Other

AIM (see 226. Words with Complicated Grammar 2, #3), COMPARE (see 277. Advantages & Disadvantages, #6), DERIVE, FLOAT, SELL
.

PRACTICE EXERCISE (Unnecessary Passives)

The following exercise from my book Grammar Practice for Professional Writing may help you to know how easily you can recognise verbs like INCREASE. You have to identify sentences whose passive verb could also be active (followed by a different preposition from by) without a change in word order. Answers are given afterwards.

1. Reading speeds are improved by constant practice.

2. A new academic term is usually begun in January.

3. Many commercial aircraft are flown across the Atlantic every day.

4. The Pacific is crossed by aircraft on a regular basis.

5. The countries of SE Asia are being rapidly developed.

6. Attitudes can be changed by education.

7. Heat can be transferred by means of radiation.

8. Clouds are formed from water vapour in the atmosphere.

9. Africa was opened up in the nineteenth century.

10. The destruction of forests will be continued in the future.

11. Much business efficiency was gained by computerisation.

12. Scientific knowledge is being widened all the time.

13. Metals are expanded as they are heated up.

14. Electrical resistance is decreased by use of suitable materials.

15. It is worrying to see forests being destroyed.

16. Cars are driven on the left of the road in Japan.

.

ANSWERS

All of the verbs can also be used in the active without a word order change except those in sentences 4 (cross), 11 (gain) and 15 (destroy). The rewritten sentences might look like this:

1. Reading speeds improve WITH constant practice.

2. A new academic term usually begins in January.

3. Many commercial aircraft fly across the Atlantic every day.

5. The countries of SE Asia are rapidly developing.

6. Attitudes can change WITH education.

7. Heat can transfer by means of radiation.

8. Clouds form from water vapour in the atmosphere.

9. Africa opened up in the nineteenth century.

10. The destruction of forests will continue in the future.

12. Scientific knowledge is widening all the time.

13. Metals expand as they heat up.

14. Electrical resistance decreases by use of suitable materials.

16. Cars drive on the left of the road in Japan.

3. Reading Obstacles 2: Multi-Use Words

.

It is easy to struggle in reading when a small familiar word is used in an unfamiliar way

SMALL WORDS WITH DIFFERENT USES

Multi-use words is my name for small familiar words whose grammar and meaning can vary. One familiar example is the word to: sometimes a preposition requiring a noun or -ing verb after it, as in Winter temperatures fall to zero, and sometimes the first part of a verb in the infinitive form, as in People like to talk (see 35. Words Followed by “to -ing”). Elsewhere, the verb HAVE can be used either by itself or as an indicator of another verb’s tense (see 116. Rarer Uses of HAVE). And the conjunction whether can either introduce an indirect question or deny a condition (see 99. Meanings of “whether … or …”). Sometimes such alternative uses can lead to a double meaning (see 182. Structures with a Double Meaning 2, #3).

My suspicion that multi-use words are a significant cause of reading difficulty comes from observing that difficult extracts recorded by learners (as described in the “technical papers” section of this blog under the heading What can learners tell us about their reading problems?) seem to involve them particularly often. A possible explanation of why multi-use words cause problems is that unskilled readers will sometimes know only one of their uses, and will assume they are seeing that one when a different one is encountered, thus failing to recognise any linguistic reason why the text is not making sense.

The exercise below presents particular multi-use words that seem to underlie actual reading difficulties reported by learners. In some cases, the different uses of these words resemble those of to in probably having been both encountered by readers at an early stage of their English studies. In others, one of the uses is likely to be less familiar to readers because of being less common or more specialised (see 256. Unusual Meanings of Familiar Words).

.

READING PROBLEMS CAUSED BY MULTI-USE WORDS

How easily can you understand the following extracts? Can you spot the multi-use word in each (answers below)?

1. But civil war within the empire and mounting attacks by Vikings from without made the later years … unpropitious.

2. What is king and servant, after all, but one expression of the Paschal mystery?

3. There is general agreement that the human number 2 chromosome is the product of the fusion of two chimpanzee chromosomes with many other differences between the chromosome complements in the two species being due to… .

4. The most apt term could be determined or driven or focussed.

5. One can take suffering seriously without taking too much notice of what is happening around us.

6. It was a very popular event attended by some 98,000 spectators.

7. We have to get away from this assumption the industry can deliver everything everybody wants immediately.

8. Kids caught in the college rush more often than not work 70 hours or more a week.

9. The change could protect local government revenue from speeding fines.

.

ANALYSIS OF MULTI-USE WORDS IN ACTION

1. The word without here is the one with an unusual meaning. It is the opposite not of with, but of within. Since within means “inside”, without here means “outside”. In terms of word classes, without used as the opposite of with is a preposition, but used as the opposite of within is an adverb. 

2. The multi-use word here is but. Normally used as a conjunction (see 40. Conjunctions versus Connectors), here it is a preposition meaning “except” (see 215. Naming Exceptions).

3. The multi-use word here is with. It means not “accompanying” but “while”. The clue that it is not being used in the ordinary way is that after it there is not a noun by itself, but a noun acting as subject of an -ing verb (differences between … being). There is a similar use before -ed participles (see 75. How to Avoid “Dangling” Participles, #4), and also before participles at the start of a sentence, where the meaning is “because” (see 88. Exotic Grammar Structures 1, #7). A negative equivalent of with in all these uses is without (see 310. Aspects of Negation, #5).

The word before with above (fusion) also hinders comprehension. This is because it very often partners an ordinary following with, so that the unusual with here is easy to misunderstand as this ordinary one. The clue that an ordinary with is not present in 3 is that its meaning after fusion has already been expressed in an alternative way (after of: fusion of two chimpanzee chromosomes = fusion of one chimpanzee chromosome with another).

4. Here the problem is two different uses of the verb BE: combined or not combined with a following verb. In the first case, we say that BE is an “auxiliary” helping to form either a continuous tense or the passive voice, the following verb being in the participle form (see 52. Participles Placed Just After their Noun). When there is no combination with a following verb, we expect the next word to be a “complement”: a noun or adjective or equivalent which relates back to the subject (see 220. Features of Complements).

In the example above, could be seems to be combined with the following verb determined, making a passive form. In fact, though, determined here means “the term determined“, making it noun-like rather than verb-like (many writers would put it in italics). For a similar confusion involving BE and its following word, see 69. How Computers Get Grammar Wrong (2). The clues to discovering the right meaning are firstly the early mention of term (creating the expectation of being told what the term is), and secondly the lack of logic if could be determined is taken as a passive verb.

5. The key word here is too. Normally if we use it before an adjective or adverb it means something negative like “more than is good” (see 13. Hidden Negatives). Here, however, it just means “very” (see 98. “Very”, “Much” and “Very Much”), and there is no negativity about it at all. The reason for the changed meaning is the without in front, itself a negative word. The two negative words together perhaps cancel each other out in the normal way (see 9. Double Negatives).

6. The unusual use here is of some. Its normal meaning “a quantity of” would suggest, perhaps, that fewer than 98,000 spectators were present. Here, though, it just means “approximately”, so that the true spectator number could be higher as well as lower (see 95. Avoiding Untruths 1). Used like this, it must be pronounced like sum, and not with the normal weak vowel /∂/. For a further unusual use of some, see 228. Exotic Grammar Structures 5, #1.

7. The multi-use word here is not even mentioned; it is an “understood” that in two places: after assumption and everything. The first use is a conjunction, helping to specify the assumption (see the end of 153. Conjunction Uses of “that”); the second is a relative pronoun (similar to which: see 34. Relative Pronouns and Commas). A good way to discover which use a particular that has is to try and replace it with who or which: if either sounds possible, then that is a relative pronoun.

8. The problem word here is rush – not strictly a “multi-use” word, but just a word belonging to more than one grammatical class (noun and verb). So which is it here? In fact it must be a noun because the sentence is not otherwise grammatical (as defined in 100. What is a Grammar Error?). You have to understand that the college rush is a single phrase meaning “the rushing that people do at college”. The noun college is hence being used like an adjective (describing another noun – see 38. Nouns Used like Adjectives) instead of being the subject of a verb. The confusion of this sentence is perhaps exacerbated by more often than not, an idiomatic phrase meaning “more than 50% of the time”.

9. The multi-use word here is the preposition from. Prepositions and their following noun can clarify the meaning of nouns, verbs or adjectives placed immediately before them (see 72. Causal Prepositions and 203. Expanding an Adjective with Words after it). The noun and verb possibilities exist together when the preposition comes directly after the object of a verb (see 124. Structures with a Double Meaning 1, #2).

In sentence 9, does from speeding fines clarify the verb could protect (saying what the protection is from), or its object noun revenue (saying where that comes from)? In fact, the meaning is the latter: that speeding fines are where the revenue comes from, and no mention is being made of what this revenue needs to be protected from. The only clue to this interpretation is that it is more logical.

Further examples of multi-use words are question words like when (which can also be relative adverbs – see the end of 185. Noun Synonyms of Question Words), enough (see 189. Expressing Sufficiency) and only (see 251. The Grammar of “Only”).

2. Reading Obstacles 1: Interrupted Structures

.

When closely-connected words are written with other words in between them, the connection can be obscured

DEFINITION OF AN INTERRUPTED STRUCTURE

Interrupted (“discontinuous”) structures are words with a close grammatical link that are separated by other words. For example, the words larger than have a close grammatical link (the –er ending needs or implies than and vice versa), and a word interrupting this two-word group might be usually in the phrase larger usually than. Sometimes the interrupting words are surrounded by a pair of bracket-like commas (see 50. Right and Wrong Comma Places), like this:

(a) Fit athletes should complete a marathon in, at the very most, three hours.

The problem for reading is that the separation of the closely-linked words, especially without commas, can stop the reader seeing the link.

There are various types of structure that can be interrupted. Here are some important ones:

1. Preposition + Noun

All prepositions need a partner noun, usually placed just after them (see 84. Seven Things to Know About Prepositions, #1). The typical place where interruptions occur is just after the preposition. This is the case in sentence (a) above.

.

2. Verb Phrases

Verb phrases are expanded verbs. They might be a main verb with one or more preceding auxiliaries (BE, HAVE, DO, will etc.), as in should be working; or one with following ordinary verbs in the participle or infinitive form, as in wants to be seen; or a “two-word” verb – with closely-linked adverb or preposition – such as move on (see 139. Phrasal Verbs and 123. Prepositional Verbs Containing a Noun). Interrupting words are likely to be adverbs (see 120. Six Things to Know About Adverbs):

(b) Fit athletes should, ideally, complete a marathon in three hours.

.

3. Noun Phrases

The meaning of a noun can be made more exact (“modified”) by words added directly before or after it. Words before will mostly be the/a or their substitutes (see 110. Nouns without “the” or “a”), and/or many adjective uses (see 184. Adjectives with Limited Mobility), and/or adjective-like nouns (see 38. Nouns Used like Adjectives). Possibilities after include preposition phrases, relative clauses, a few adjective uses, and statements introduced by the conjunction that (for a full list and analysis, see 252. Descriptive Wording after Nouns 1).

When two of the possibilities after a noun are together, one could be said to be interrupting the link that the other has with the noun. For example, preposition phrases usually come before relative clauses and hence can make the connection between the latter and the shared noun harder to see (see 28. Pronoun Errors, #3). Here is an example of how a noun can be separated from a following that statement by an interrupting participle phrase; it is analysed in detail in the Guinlist post 68. How Computers Get Grammar Wrong 1:

(c) Learner motivation may occur because of the possibility mentioned above that learners can enjoy reading aloud.

.

4. Adjective Phrases

Like nouns, adjectives can be modified by words before and/or after them (see 203. Expanding an Adjective with Words after it). In the following example, the adjective happy is separated by the time expression at the time from a later modifier starting with with.

(d) The people were happy at the time with the government’s measures.

An interesting type of interruption sometimes exists when a to verb modifies an adjective before it, e.g. easy to understand. Although such phrases can follow the noun that the adjective is about, e.g. instructions easy to understand (see 109. Placing an Adjective after its Noun), they can also be interrupted by it, e.g. easy instructions to understand. For details of which adjectives allow this interruption and which do not (see 83. Adjectives before a “to” Verb).

.

ANALYSIS OF A PROBLEM-CAUSING INTERRUPTED STRUCTURE

Not all interrupted structures are a problem in reading; but some are because I have observed their presence in extracts that learners of English have reported as difficult (see the technical article entitled What can learners tell us about their reading problems?). The length of the interruption may well be significant. Consider the following:

(e) This issue (of a journal) examines the courses and causes of fertility decline through history and the industrialization/food security conundrum in China, the world’s most populous country.

The interruption here is between the underlined article the and the noun it modifies. What exactly is this noun: industrialization, food, security or conundrum? In fact, there is a fairly easy rule that can help to show which: any article placed before closely-combined nouns like these goes with the last of them (see 38. Nouns Used Like Adjectives). So the here goes with conundrum (which means “puzzle” or “difficult choice”). The words industrialization and security are being used before it like adjectives to show what the difficult choice is between, and food is also being used like an adjective, saying what kind of security is meant.

Thus, the phrase the industrialization/food security conundrum in China means “the difficult choice in China between industrialisation and food security”. In other words, according to this writer more industrialisation in China means less food security, and more food security means less industrialisation, so that China has a difficult choice to make.

.

PRACTICE IN HANDLING INTERRUPTED STRUCTURES

Here are some more interrupted structures that students have reported as difficult. How easily can you understand them? What is the interruption in each (answers below)?

.

PROBLEM TEXTS

1. One new product in the grocery trade out of seven survives to the third year.

2. Marketing is a philosophy of running a business that should dominate every major decision.

3. Of equal … importance is the broader issue of the effects of what the information media communicate on individuals and on society.

4. How we relate to them depends to a great extent on their momentary requirements.

5. Part III addresses some of the sorts of reasons advanced for violating the law.

.

ANSWERS

1. The interrupted phrase is One … out of seven, which expresses the idea of ¹/₇.

2. a philosophy … that … . The relative pronoun that goes with faraway philosophy, not the immediately preceding business (see 28. Pronoun Errors for more about this difficulty with relative pronouns).

3. effects of… on… . It is easy to decide that on goes with communicate, whereas in fact it goes with effects, there being many other words in between. You have to know that effects can precede of + cause and on + thing changed by the cause (see 10. Words with Unexpected Grammar, #c). The cause is what the information media communicate, which means “the things communicated by the information media”.

4. depends… on… . The words to a great extent (which themselves go closely together – see 164. Fixed Preposition Phrases) have separated this prepositional verb from its usual preposition.

5. reasons… for… . Advanced is separating the noun reasons from its typical following preposition for (see 111. Words with a Typical Preposition under “Noun-Preposition Combinations”). Advanced is usable as both an adjective meaning “sophisticated” and a verb in the participle form meaning “proposed” (see 261. Words with Complicated Grammar 3, #2). It has to be the verb here because it follows its noun, something that adjectives rarely do (see 245. Adjectives with a Participle Ending, #8).

1. Simple Example-Giving

.

English has numerous words for naming one or some members of a general class without further details

DEFINITION OF SIMPLE EXAMPLE-GIVING

Example-giving has four main features. Firstly, it names one or more members of a previously-mentioned general class. For instance, cats or cats and dogs given as examples might be found after the general class name animals.

Secondly, example-giving indicates that fewer than all of the general class members are being mentioned. Without such indication, the reader will think multiple class members are all the possibilities (see 54. Sentence Lists 1: Incidental), and mention of just one equates to the class (see 117. Restating Generalizations More Specifically). Writers might selectively mention class members because there are too many to list completely. Sometimes they might indicate unmentioned members because they do not know if any exist and they want to avoid wrongly suggesting that none do (see 96. Making Statements More Uncertain 2).

Thirdly, class members named as examples are not chosen because they are special in any way; their choice is random. Thus, any statement beginning with in particular or above all or the most… is unlikely to be example-giving. For more about statements like these, see 54. Sentence Lists 1: Incidental.

Fourthly, the purpose of naming class members is to clarify or verify the class name and/or statement about it. One can selectively name class members for other purposes, for example as an introduction to their longer discussion (see 162. Writing about Classifications), but then they are not examples. One can also clarify or verify with a complete list of class members – again not exemplification.

Some example-giving relates just to a class name, while some relates to more. The first kind is what I mean by “simple” example-giving. An example is:

(a) Air pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide, cause many problems.

Here, sulphur dioxide is simply named as one of the members of the class of air pollutants, with nothing more said about it (cause many problems is information about air pollutants in general, not just sulphur dioxide).

This post is about language choices in simple example-giving. For language choices in the other kind of example-giving, see 33. Complex Example-Giving. Also relevant is 53. “As”, “Like” and “Such As”, which looks more closely at three of the example-giving expressions presented here.

.

THE CHALLENGE OF SIMPLE-EXAMPLE GIVING

The two basic requirements for simple example-giving – the class name and the actual example(s) – can be placed either together in the same sentence or separately in multiple sentences. In this respect, simple example-giving resembles other two-element messages considered within these pages, such as expressing a consequence, indicating a difference, classifying and naming exceptions. The two example-giving possibilities may be illustrated like this:

(b) (ONE SENTENCE) Pollution causes many problems, for example illness.

(c) (TWO SENTENCES) Pollution causes many problems. One is illness.

Deciding whether or not to place the example(s) in the same sentence as the class name is the main linguistic judgement to make in simple example-giving. There is also a choice to be made of suitable example-showing language.

.

LANGUAGE FOR SHOWING SIMPLE EXAMPLES

Various expressions can indicate simple example-giving. Some need the example(s) to be in the same sentence as the general class name, some need a new sentence, while some allow a choice.

1. Example-Showing in the Same Sentence as the Class

The main words of this type are for example, for instance, e.g., including, such as, like, as, include, illustrated by, etc. and say. Two of these, e.g. and etc., are Latin abbreviations (see 130. Formal Abbreviations).

For example, for instance, e.g. and including normally combine with their example(s) without intervening punctuation (see 226. Words with Complicated Grammar 2, #4). Punctuation only only goes before them and after the example(s). This use is different from that of for example and for instance in complex example-giving, which need punctuation directly before and after them (see 33. Complex Example-Giving).

For example and for instance can also follow a simple example (with punctuation both before and after them).

As, like and such as only sometimes have a preceding comma (see 53. “As”, “Like” and “Such as”). As needs a following preposition (typically in) before its example(s), or conjunction (usually when). Like and such as need a directly-preceding noun: a preceding verb like are is a quite common error. They allow a following verb, but it must have -ing (see 312. Grammar Command Test 3, #c). With multiple class members comprising all the possibilities, they must be replaced by the before the class name (see 309. Tricky Grammar Contrasts 5, #1).

Etc. normally follows example-naming after a colon or BE:

(d) There are various Romance languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese etc.

(e) (The) Romance languages are French, Spanish, Portuguese etc.

Colons must follow a sentence-like statement, as in (d) – an impossibility with BE forms like are in (e). The need for a colon or BE before examples with etc. resembles that before complete lists (see 55. Sentence Lists 2). However, example-giving additionally needs a vague number word (various above) before the class name.

Etc. optionally follows a comma – like and in lists. Indeed, et- actually means “and”, so that writing and etc. is illogical (see 303. Confusions of Similar Structures 4, #4).

Etc. has various synonyms, including among others, and others, and so on, and suchlike and to name but a few – but not usually “three dots” (…), which are more “Continental” than English (see 59.Paragraph Length). Importantly, etc. and its synonyms cannot accompany other example-showing expressions, like such as before French in (d) or include in (e) (see 24. Good and Bad Repetition and 138. Grammar Command Test 1, #7).

Say is an imperative verb (short for let us say) usable before or after its example(s). It normally suggests an expectation that the addressee can easily think of class members, but cannot decide which ones are relevant:

(f) Within a short distance, say 10m, everything changes.

This implies the addressee can think of possibilities covered by a short distance, and just needs to know which exact ones are relevant. Compare it with (b) and (e) above (which disallow say), where the suggestion is that the addressee needs to be informed, or at least reminded, of class members.

Say often accompanies an implied rather than explicit general class (a possibility with for example too):

(g) Prediction in economics poses problems that prediction in, say, astronomy does not.

The implied general class here is something like hard sciences. Observe the punctuation: surrounding just say instead of say + example.

.

2. Example-Showing in a New Sentence

Most new-sentence example indicators contain a verb (underlined below). This is logical because any new sentence must have its own verb (see 30. When to Write a Full Stop).

one is …

an example is … (examples are …)

… is an example.

… is a case in point

they/these include …

they/these are illustrated by …

among these are …

these are … , etc.

they might…

Among these, one is… could also introduce a non-random class member, or start a complete class member list (see 263. Uses of “One” and “Ones”, #3); example cannot be replaced by instance (see 218. Tricky Word Contrasts 8, #5); etc. and its synonyms again cannot combine with other example-giving expressions.; and they might is useful for illustrating verb as well as noun ideas (see 228. Exotic Grammar Structures 5, #6).

Some writers wishing to give a simple example may think of both the example and the example-showing language at the same time. If so, they have to use the punctuation that goes with the language they have thought of. For example, thinking of such as at the moment of choosing the example means that the example must go into the same sentence as the class name – it cannot go anywhere else – and conversely an example after one is must be in a new sentence after a full stop. 

On the other hand, it is possible to think of an example without at the same time thinking of accompanying example-showing language. Then there is more choice about the punctuation. You can decide either to put the example into a new sentence, only afterwards choosing an appropriate example-showing expression (from the second list above), or to have no new sentence, choosing your expression from the first list as a result.

There are various possible reasons other than a prior language choice why a writer might want to locate or not locate an example in a new sentence. Sentence length is one possibility. Another is paraphrase of another writer’s words, where making structural changes ought always to be a priority (see 80. How to Paraphrase). Examples given in the same sentence as their class can be paraphrased as new-sentence ones, and vice versa. This kind of conscious decision-making must surely be the better approach, and the one that most successful writers will use.

.

PRACTICE EXERCISE: EXAMPLE LANGUAGE AND SENTENCE STRUCTURE

Readers wishing to strengthen their understanding and retention of the various points above are invited to try the following practice exercise, in which sentences have to be completed as instructed. The example language that is chosen should be as varied as possible. Answers are provided afterwards.

1. Give an example country in the same sentence:

Portuguese is spoken in many countries outside Portugal, _____________ .

2. Give an example country in a new sentence:

French is spoken in many countries outside France.  ________________.

3. Give TWO example numbers in a new sentence:

Some numbers cannot be divided by any other numbers except themselves and one.  __________________________________.

4. Give TWO example conjunctions in the same sentence.

A conjunction is a word that enables two verbs to exist together in one sentence, ______________________.

5. Write a possible beginning of this sentence:

Exercise ____________________________ , like preventing heart disease.

6. Give an example of a vocabulary-learning strategy in the same sentence.

Vocabulary learning requires numerous strategies, _________________.

7. Complete this sentence using “a case in point”.

Ancient Greek thinkers still influence academic subjects today. _________ .

8. Complete this sentence in any suitable way.

Dictionaries are an important aid to language learning.  Their uses _______________________ their helpfulness with word pronunciation.

.

ANSWERS (look particularly at the grammar of these sentences, rather than the actual examples chosen).

1. Portuguese is spoken in many countries outside Portugal, for example Brazil.

2. French is spoken in many countries outside France. One is (or An example is) Algeria.

3. Some numbers cannot be divided by any other numbers except themselves and one. Examples (or Among them) are 7 and 13.

4. A conjunction is a word that enables two verbs to exist together in one sentence, such as (or like or for example or e.g.) “but” and/or “when”.

5. Exercise has numerous benefits, like preventing heart disease. (Although this example contains the verb preventing, the -ing makes a same-sentence example necessary)

6. Vocabulary learning requires numerous strategies, e.g. using a dictionary. (Although this example contains the verb using, the -ing makes a same-sentence example necessary)

7. Ancient Greek thinkers still influence academic subjects today. Aristotle is a case in point.

8. Dictionaries are an important aid to language learning.  Their uses include (or are illustrated by) their helpfulness with word pronunciation.