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calling grammar nazis!

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
is this a sentence fragment?

"Almost all of the commercials without FDA input, totaling about half of the commercials, posed problems."
 
1. "Almost all" and "about half" are contradictory
2. Removing ", totaling about half of the commercials," would almost fix it
3. Check your use of the word "posed". I am sure there is a better one.
 
Originally posted by: Mwilding
1. "Almost all" and "about half" are contradictory
2. Removing ", totaling about half of the commercials," would almost fix it
3. Check your use of the word "posed". I am sure there is a better one.

The sentence has issues, but it is complete.
 
i think i've seen something similar to that in a newspaper a couple of times, but hey, don't ask me, because i don't read the newspaper that much 😀
 
Originally posted by: ElFenix
is this a sentence fragment?

"Almost all of the commercials without FDA input, totaling about half of the commercials, posed problems."


Take out the unimportant parts and you have "the commercials posed problems." That should be easier for you to figure out.
 
Originally posted by: ElFenix
is this a sentence fragment?

"Almost all of the commercials without FDA input, totaling about half of the commercials, posed problems."

It's not a fragment, but the structure is ass backwards. The actual content is "About half of the commercials posed problems" which leaves "almost all of the commercials without FDA input" as additional information that needs to be either inserted somewhere or a second thought entirely. My suggestions would be the following:

"About half of the commercials posed problems. Almost all of those were without FDA input."

or

"Of the about half of the commercials that posed problems, almost all of them were without FDA input."

I would strongly suggest breaking these apart into two totally separate thoughts.
 
Originally posted by: Mwilding
1. "Almost all" and "about half" are contradictory
2. Removing ", totaling about half of the commercials," would almost fix it
3. Check your use of the word "posed". I am sure there is a better one.

Almost all of is referring to the "without FDA input" subset of commercials. That subset is about half of the complete set of all commercials.
 
Originally posted by: frodrick
Originally posted by: Mwilding
1. "Almost all" and "about half" are contradictory
2. Removing ", totaling about half of the commercials," would almost fix it
3. Check your use of the word "posed". I am sure there is a better one.

Almost all of is referring to the "without FDA input" subset of commercials. That subset is about half of the complete set of all commercials.

This is what you need to clarify. 🙂 Break them apart and give the reader a second to digest each group by splitting it up into two sentances. Then give the reader something to correlate the two. You should be able to do both in two sentances.
 
Originally posted by: Nik
Originally posted by: ElFenix
is this a sentence fragment?

"Almost all of the commercials without FDA input, totaling about half of the commercials, posed problems."

It's not a fragment, but the structure is ass backwards. The actual content is "About half of the commercials posed problems" which leaves "almost all of the commercials without FDA input" as additional information that needs to be either inserted somewhere or a second thought entirely. My suggestions would be the following:

"About half of the commercials posed problems. Almost all of those were without FDA input."

or

"Of the about half of the commercials that posed problems, almost all of them were without FDA input."

I would strongly suggest breaking these apart into two totally separate thoughts.
yeah, that is better. compound sentences are almost never a good idea.
 
Originally posted by: Nik
Originally posted by: frodrick
Originally posted by: Mwilding
1. "Almost all" and "about half" are contradictory
2. Removing ", totaling about half of the commercials," would almost fix it
3. Check your use of the word "posed". I am sure there is a better one.

Almost all of is referring to the "without FDA input" subset of commercials. That subset is about half of the complete set of all commercials.

This is what you need to clarify. 🙂 Break them apart and give the reader a second to digest each group by splitting it up into two sentances. Then give the reader something to correlate the two. You should be able to do both in two sentances.

I agree that the OP needs to make this a lot clearer. I was just trying to show that "almost all" and "about half" weren't modifying the same object. This is assuming he is actually constructing this sentence and not just checking a set of sentences for fragments in an exercise to teach grammar
 
Originally posted by: frodrick
Originally posted by: ElFenix
is this a sentence fragment?

"Almost all of the commercials without FDA input, totaling about half of the commercials, posed problems."


Take out the unimportant parts and you have "the commercials posed problems." That should be easier for you to figure out.

i know. word doesn't like it.
 
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