11a. Mixed grammar
Once you begin a sentence, your choices are limited by the range of grammatical patterns in English. (See sections 47 and 48.) You cannot begin with one grammatical plan and switch without warning to another. Often you must rethink the purpose of the sentence and revise.
| mixed | For most drivers who have a blood alcohol content of .05 percent double their risk of causing an accident. |
The writer begins the sentence with a long prepositional phrase and makes it the subject of the verb double. But a prepositional phrase can serve only as a modifier; it cannot be the subject of a sentence.
| revised | For most drivers who have a blood alcohol content of .05 percent, the risk of causing an accident is doubled. |
| revised | Most drivers who have a blood alcohol content of .05 percent double their risk of causing an accident. |
In the first revision, the writer begins with the prepositional phrase and finishes the sentence with a proper subject and verb (risk . . . is doubled). In the second revision, the writer stays with the original verb (double) and begins the sentence another way, making drivers the subject of double.
The adverb clause When the country elects a president cannot serve as the subject of the verb is. The revision replaces the adverb clause with a gerund phrase, a word group that can function as a subject. (See 48e and 48b.)
The coordinating conjunction but cannot link a subordinate clause (Although the United States . . . ) with an independent clause (more than 20 percent of our children live in poverty).
Occasionally a mixed construction is so tangled that it defies grammatical analysis. When this happens, back away from the sentence, rethink what you want to say, and then rewrite the sentence.
| mixed | In the whole-word method, children learn to recognize entire words rather than by the phonics method in which they learn to sound out letters and groups of letters. |
| revised | The whole-word method teaches children to recognize entire words; the phonics method teaches them to sound out letters and groups of letters. |
Multilingual
English does not allow double subjects, nor does it allow an object or an adverb to be repeated in an adjective clause. Unlike some other languages, English does not allow a noun and a pronoun to be repeated in a sentence if they have the same grammatical function. See 30c and 30d.
