McMahon Grammar Exercise: Parallelism
Primer on Prepositional Phrases
Parallelism Example:
Faulty
To lose weight, you must drink 40 ounces of green tea a day, cut out white flour and sugar, and exercising daily.
Corrected
To lose weight, you must drink 40 ounces of green tea a day, cut out white flour and sugar, and exercise daily.
Faulty
The instructor gave a low score to the essay because it was larded with grammar errors, its pages were stapled in the wrong order, and stinky fish smell.
Corrected
The instructor gave a low score to the essay because it was larded with grammar errors, its pages were stapled in the wrong order, and its pages smelled of rotten fish.
Faulty
Larding your essay with grammatical errors, failing to proofread a hard copy, and to not staple pages in correct order will result in a low essay grade.
Corrected
Larding your essay with grammatical errors, failing to proofread a hard copy, and failing to staple pages in correct order will result in a low essay grade.
Correct the faulty parallelism by rewriting the sentences below.
One. Parenting toddlers is difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that toddlers contradict everything you ask them to do; they have giant mood swings, and all-night tantrums.
Two. You should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: They encourage gluttony; they feature fatty, over-salted foods and high sugar content.
Three. I prefer kettlebell training at home than the gym because of the increased privacy, the absence of loud “gym” music, and I’m able to concentrate more.
Four. To write a successful research paper you must adhere to the exact MLA format, employ a variety of paragraph transitions, and writing an intellectually rigorous thesis.
Five. The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that the rules are frequently being updated, the sheer abundance of rules you have to follow, and to integrate your research into your essay.
Six. You should avoid watching “reality shows” on TV because they encourage a depraved form of voyeurism; they distract you from your own problems, and their brain-dumbing effects.
Seven. I’m still fat even though I’ve tried the low-carb diet, the Paleo diet, the Rock-in-the-Mouth diet, and fasting every other day.
Eight. To write a successful thesis, you must have a compelling topic, a sophisticated take on that topic, and developing a thesis that elevates the reader’s consciousness to a higher level.
Nine. Getting enough sleep, exercising daily, and the importance of a positive attitude are essential for academic success.
Ten. My children never react to my calm commands or when I beg them to do things.
Parallelism in Thesis Statements
Faulty
"You're Ugly, Too" and "Greenleaf" feature characters whose pride is born as a coping mechanism to the intense pain of loss and loneliness. However, the coping mechanism of pride becomes maladaptive when we consider pride builds a wall of solipsism, fortifies a prison of learned helplessness, and the lie of self-sufficiency.
Corrected
"You're Ugly, Too" and "Greenleaf" feature characters whose pride is born as a coping mechanism to the intense pain of loss and loneliness. However, the coping mechanism of pride becomes maladaptive when we consider pride builds a wall of solipsism, fortifies a prison of learned helplessness, and spawns the lie of self-sufficiency.
Faulty
The deluded fantasies of the married man in "The Other Woman" speak to men's unrealistic expectations of marriage evidenced by men's desire to embrace the forbidden Eros of Angelina Jolie, the squeaky clean innocence of Jennifer Aniston, and he wants a trophy wife.
Corrected
The deluded fantasies of the married man in "The Other Woman" speak to men's unrealistic expectations of marriage evidenced by men's desire to embrace the forbidden Eros of Angelina Jolie, the squeaky clean innocence of Jennifer Aniston, and the upper class status of the judge's daughter.
Faulty
The Man-Child, embodied by Francis Weed in "The Country Husband," is characterized by his propensity for indulging his lust and anti-social aggression at the expense of societal and family responsibility, his fixation on his youth as his central identity, and he likes to party.
Corrected
The Man-Child, embodied by Francis Weed in "The Country Husband," is characterized by his propensity for indulging his lust and anti-social aggression at the expense of societal and family responsibility, his fixation on his youth as his central identity, and his inclination for intractable self-pity.
Essay Option "The Country Husband" using cause and effect analysis
Develop a thesis that shows how Cheever's "The Country Husband" is a scathing critique of the American Dream.
The American Dream is a script with rules, and if we follow these rules, we will find "happiness."
Consider the following:
Conform to domestic appearances and convention
Work to support a domestic life of convention
Balance conformity with individual distinction and self-worth
Emphasize youth as the embodiment of glory and vitality over the wisdom of moving beyond middle age
Sacrifice individual fulfillment for family's needs
Another Essay for "The Country Husband" using extended definition
Using Francis Weed as a model, develop an extended definition of the Man-Child (or you can use the Turkish word Muganda).
Characteristics of a Man-Child
He relies on self-aggrandizement and braggadocio rather than moral courage and integrity to define his manhood.
He is prone to being sullen and overcome with self-pity when he doesn't get his way.
He suffers an intractable identity crisis in which he doesn't know who he is or what he wants to be.
He is inclined to indulge the desires of his Id rather than the prescribed duties of his Super Ego or conscience.
He is inclined to be passive-aggressive with those who thwart or impede his desires.
He is inclined to make up excuses for his lapses of responsibility.
His self-centered nature inclines him to be rude and inconsiderate of others.
He is inclined to rely on a mother figure--either his actual mother, a girlfriend, or a wife--to bail him out of his many crises.
His personality has rough edges, which need to be softened by a more mature, often female figure.
He is inclined to bully males who are younger and less powerful than he is.
Of all the creatures in the animal kingdom, the man-child most identifies with the dog.
He is inclined to disappear into a Man Cave where he indulges his adolescent self.
He is content to sit for the rest of his life drinking beer and screaming at the TV.
It is impossible for the Man-Child to do house chores without spewing a voluminous effluvium of "curse words" that are inappropriate for small children.
In public places, the Man-Child is inclined to speak or bark in a loud voice that calls attention to him and embarrasses his wife and family even though the Man-Child is oblivious to the spectacle he is making.
The Man-Child loves ruining your viewing of a movie or TV show by telling you what is about to happen because he has seen it already and is eager for you to know this.
While the Man-Child may have a strong intellect, his inability to listen to anyone makes him appear profoundly stupid.
The Man-Child often roves in packs because it comforts him to be with people whose immaturity, by implication, justifies his own.
The Man-Child may be mature and considerate when sober but find that under the influence of alcohol his Man-Child unleashes like the most ornery demon.
The Man-Child is the number one reason married women are unhappy.
Study Guide for "The Country Husband" by John Cheever
Themes
Dionysian vs. Apollonian forces
Private desire vs. public duty
Suburban conformity and the loss of meaning
How to be a man (other than disappearing into the Man Cave, drinking beer, and screaming at the TV)
The shame and intoxication of clinging to delusions of eternal youth and perpetual adolescence
Fear of irrelevance and feelings of worthlessness in modern society
Impoverishment through substitution
Reading Questions for "The Country Husband"
1. What is the significance of Francis’ brush with death?
Irrelevance. Such a trauma causes us to question the meaning of our lives. We see this theme in Breaking Bad.
Dionysian shake up ruptures Apollonian calm. Or I should say apparent calm since a disease roils underneath this suburb, as we shall see.
Men facing death discuss their Bucket List, their "shoulds" and "I've always wanted to . . ."
We see men in a state of regret, lives of failed meaning and fulfillment.
Clearly, the crash happened long before social media. Twitter would have had a viral episode with it, but when he gets home his family knows nothing of it.
He feels irrelevant and disconnected. These feelings compel him down a rabbit hole of self-pity and alcohol, which in turn makes him feel more worthless, irrelevant, and disconnected. He's like many men.
2. What is the contradiction of Francis Weed’s name?
Francis is he exquisite and the refined mated with Weed, the wild and the untamed. We can also say Francis is the Apollonian while Weed is the Dionysian. Further, we can say Francis is the outer man. Weed is the Id, the inner demon that wants what it wants and "the hell with society."
3. How has Francis created a suburban Eden?
His is a false Eden of consumerism, conformity, and the worship of money disguised as "hard work." The USA enables you to be addicted to greed and consumerism by saying, "Your a good, hard working person." But in reality you're just a mindless consumer.
In this Eden of Conformity we don't inconvenience people with tales of near death like a plane crash. The family is too self-absorbed for such unpleasant anecdotes. They are like a precursor of the Digital Family, necks stretched down at their phones as their eyes are glued to their screens during silent dinners.
In Weed's self-centered family, no one cares about his pain, his angst, his emptiness, or his awkwardness. "Chin up, man." Weed is a damned man waiting and watching life happen to him rather than taking action. He is spiritually paralyzed and inert, a walking corpse.
The wife at dinner "strikes a match and lights the six candles" while the children scream, whine, and cry. The theater or stage show of domestic bliss must go on.
Francis sees the farce that is his life. It's a stage, a show, and he's a two-bit player, part of the supporting cast. His ego is crushed.
He feels powerless to assuage the "battlefield" that has become his family. He is an emasculated father figure.
Again, Francis Weed is universal. He feels like many of us who suffer a sense of irrelevance. We all want to be validated, but self-pity doesn't help.
4. How does the story set up the conflict between the Cave and the Beehive?
The need for balance. The back garden is Francis’ cave, a refuge from the beehive.
Consider the house is full of Dionysian madcaps while the garden is a place of Apollonian repose and respite.
5. Why does the story contain war references and imagery throughout?
Battle of Marne; Scottish chieftains; analogous of interior battle, conflict; domestic battle; the maid from Normandy; Hannibal crossing the Alps; war represents vitality, strength and power; the battle of desire; the war within.
What war? Public duty vs. private desire; selfish lust and aggression vs. societal decorum.
The repression of our aggression, desires, and selfishness causes these impulses to turn inward and create acts of self-cruelty manifest in a variety of self-destructive behaviors, many of which include addictions.
Another war is the war of maturity vs. immaturity.
Moving through Jung’s 4 stages of life: athlete, warrior, statesman, spirit.
Francis stuck at the warrior stage, the egotism stage.
Francis is at war with his Inner Dog embodied in the story by Jupiter: He's an "anomaly" and "out of place in Shady Hill."
Francis is a Misfit with no sense of belonging.
Francis, like Zoe in "You're Ugly, Too," suffers from a crisis of belonging. Perhaps Francis' married life is proof to Zoe that marriage is hardly a cure for such a crisis.
6. What suggests that Francis is being eaten by the worm of self-pity?
He's lived the dream that America told him to live and he feels empty, betrayed, and disconnected from family and self. The result is anger alternated by self-pity.
Perhaps the maid who was shamed in Normandy for allegedly being a sympathizer with the Nazis is a metaphor for Francis' sense of shame and ostracism. We see there are penalties for not conforming to norms, for disobedience.
7. How does Francis react to the young woman he stares at.
He becomes intoxicated with a chimera like Lester in American Beauty. He dreams of living with the girl Anne Murchison in Paris. Clearly, staring at the babysitter Anne has awakened the Dionysian force inside Francis.
He is looking for an escape from the suburban hell that makes him feel like less than a man. Of course, he is his worst enemy, the cause of his misery.
Francis is addicted to lasciviousness and alcohol, and these addictions distance him from his wife and family. His disconnection fuels the addiction even more so that he is propelled into a vicious cycle.
8. Why is Francis’ rudeness towards Mrs. Wrightson a turning point in the story? What will the consequences of his trespass be?
They will be ostracized from the socialites like the maid was ostracized in France. Francis’ improprieties will make him a pariah.
9. When Julia rebukes her husband and says he “can’t live like a bear in a cave,” how do her words sum up the nature of most marriages?
Men are happier in marriage; women are not because they mother their husbands. Ouch. A man in his cave is not much different than a baby in his crib.
10. What is Francis’ real war?
His subconscious passive-aggressive hostility and the war within himself, his Inner Child and his Inner Man.
Francis is so hostile he doesn't know when he's being hostile like when he's rude to Clayton, the aspiring theological student.
In other words, Francis doesn't try to be a jackass; he just naturally is one. The latter is worse because in the latter case we can't control what we do.
His wife must admonish him: "You don't have to meet everything head-on, like a child. Unless you're anxious to be a social leper. It's no accident that we get asked out a great deal."
11. How does Francis tame the beast within?
Sublimation. We must find some passion to sublimate our beastly energies.
Part Two. Man-Child (Peter Pan Syndrome)
1. succumbs to self-pity; in fact, he spends time coddling and nurturing his self-pity.
2. marriage with wife is like a relationship with a mother and child
3. father never outgrows the habits of selfishness and self-centeredness
4. husband never tames his beast or Id; maturity is largely defined by self-control, a quality lacking in Francis Weed
5. The man-child retreats into the ego and severs ties with the community, becoming in essence a pariah or misfit.
6. He is the Eternal Boy who resents having boundaries in his life. Boundaries are essential for growing up, a moral lesson found in the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
7. The Man-Child sees himself as a victim of unfair persecution and as a result goes through life with a chip on his shoulder and resentment.
8. The Man-Child wants to be the center of attention or else he feels sorry for himself.
9. The Man-Child wants his family to love him and dote on him even though he does nothing to show his love for them. He fails to understand the social contract of reciprocity because he is essentially a narcissist.
10. The Man-Child is an "unfocused rebel," as we read in Karen Bernardo's essay.
Commentary
Thesis Statements for “The Country Husband”
Cause and Effect Analysis Thesis
While Francis Weed is evidenced to be a self-centered, rude Man-Child, he turns out to be a sympathetic character, in spite of himself, because he’s played by society’s rules to embrace the American Dream only to come up empty-handed, he lacks the stomach for putting up appearances, and he seems to lack the savvy and metacognition to help him navigate the natural conflicts of suburban life.
While Francis Weed is a rude lout and a surly Man-Child, he is somewhat sympathetic when we consider that he is in many ways a victim of the American Dream that tells us to follow a script of duty and consumerism. This script betrays Weed in many ways, incurring emptiness, worthlessness, and disconnection.
In the above example, the writer is analyzing the causes that make us sympathetic toward Francis.
Also, we should not that the above example is also an argument for sympathizing with Francis.
Thus, the example teaches us that a thesis can be BOTH argumentative and cause and effect analysis.
Argumentative Thesis
While some would paint Francis Weed as a sympathetic character overwhelmed with the complexities of suburban life, the story shows him to be his own worst enemy, shackled by self-centeredness, rudeness, narcissism, and moral incontinence.
Another Argumentative Thesis
While “The Country Husband” is unflinching in its critique of Francis Weed’s self-centeredness, its larger, more significant criticism is of the American Dream itself because the story paints that Dream has a fraud wrought with phony appearances, vacuous consumerism, soul-killing conformity, petty social codes, and a scarcity of healthy outlets for our natural Dionysian impulses.
Extended Definition Thesis
Francis Weed is what we would call the consummate Man-Child characterized as someone whose default setting when confronting difficulty is to succumb to self-pity, has an unhealthy reliance on his wife as a coddling mother figure, engages in the habit of excess and self-indulgence, and suffers delusions of perpetual adolescence.
McMahon Grammar Exercises: Pronoun Errors
Pronoun Errors
Vague Pronoun Reference
Possible reference to more than one word
Transmitting radio signals by satellite is a way of overcoming the problem of scarce airwaves and limiting how they are used.
In the original sentence, they could refer to the signals or to the airwaves.
Reference implied but not stated
The company prohibited smoking, which many employees resented.
What does which refer to? The editing clarifies what employees resented.
A pronoun should refer clearly to the word or words it replaces (called the antecedent) elsewhere in the sentence or in a previous sentence. If more than one word could be the antecedent, or if no specific antecedent is present, edit to make the meaning clear.
Lack of pronoun/antecedent agreement
Every student must provide their own uniform.
Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in gender (male or female) and in number (singular or plural). Many indefinite pronouns, such as everyone and each, are always singular. When a singular antecedent can refer to a man or woman, either rewrite the sentence to make the antecedent plural or to eliminate the pronoun, or use his or her, he or she, and so on. When antecedents are joined by or or nor, the pronoun must agree with the closer antecedent. A collection noun such as team can be either singular or plural, depending on whether the members are seen as a group or individuals.
Incorrect pronoun case
Determine whether the pronoun is being used as a subject, or an object, or a possessive in the sentence, and select the pronoun form to match.
Incorrect:
Castro's communist principles inevitably led to an ideological conflict between he and President Kennedy.
Correct:
Castro's communist principles inevitably led to an ideological conflict between him and President Kennedy.
Incorrect:
Because strict constructionists recommend fidelity to the Constitution as written, no one objects more than them to judicial reinterpretation.
Correct:
Because strict constructionists recommend fidelity to the Constitution as written, no one objects more than they [do] to judicial reinterpretation.
Confusing subject with object
Please give the chocolate to Randy and (I, me).
Between you and (I, me), the fat cats have all the cheese while the rest of us fight for the crumbs.
Rewrite each sentence below so that you’ve corrected the pronoun errors.
One. Between you and I, there are too many all-you-can-eat buffets mushrooming over southern California because a person thinks they’re getting a good deal when we can eat endless plates of food for a mere ten dollars.
Two. When children grow up eating at buffets, they expand their bellies and sometimes you find you cannot get “full” no matter how much we eat.
Three. As thousands of children gorged on pastrami at HomeTown Buffet, you could tell we would have to address the needs of a lot of sick children.
Four. Although I like the idea of eating all I want, you can sense that there is danger in this unlimited eating mentality that can escort us down the path of gluttony and predispose you to diabetes.
Five. When a customer feels he’s getting all the food they want, you know we can increase your business.
Six. If a student studies the correct MLA format, you can expect academic success.
Seven. It’s not easy for instructors to keep their students’ attention for a three-hour lecture. He or she must mix up the class-time with lecture, discussion, and in-class exercises.
Eight. It is good for a student to read the assigned text at least three times. When they do, they develop better reading comprehension.
Nine. The instructor gave the essays back to Bob and I.
Ten. We must find meaning to overcome the existential vacuum. Otherwise, you will descend into a rabbit hole of despair and they will find themselves behaving in all manners of self-destruction.
Subject-pronoun agreement
A person who doesn't plan ahead finds they cannot go to the big party.
Consistent point of view
When one ponders the state of education, we can't help wonder why you are lagging in critical thinking skills and one has to ask if there need to be improvements in this regard. Therefore, a person taking a critical thinking class should be prepared when they are asked to identify logical fallacies and other elements of critical thinking.
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