Barron's Writing Workbook Grammar Question

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1

<p>Barron’s writing workbook, page 178, question 1:</p>

<p>I am having trouble with this question, sentence correction:</p>

<li>Mrs. Parker loves to knit and spends most of her doing it.</li>
</ol>

<p>I don’t understand why this sentence is supposed to be wrong.
The book gave the below correction for the sentence:</p>

<p>Doing what she loves, Mrs. Parker spends most of her time knitting.</p>

<p>I get it that “it” needs a noun antecedent but isn’t “to knit” in the first sentence an infinitive noun? Can’t the infinitive function as the antecedent for the pronoun “it”? Why is this unacceptable? Can anyone please explain. I am really having a hard time this morning trying to understand this (:</p>

2

<p>In that case, "doing so" might be better than "doing it."
I saw a similar psat question: in the question, "to do so" was better than "to do it."
I guess "it" is used only limitedly for the infinitive.
Esamples: "It is hard for me to understand the question," or "I make it a rule to go to bed before midnight."</p>

3

<p>most of her What doing What? Even though you might believe the original sentence might be correct, "Doing what she loves, Mrs. Parker spends most of her time knitting." is much more concise and better.</p>

4

<p>so - Mrs. Parker loves knitting and spends most of her time doing it.</p>

<p>would that be correct?</p>

<p>does anyone have a good explanation of the word it and how it can be used with verb forms?</p>

<p>thanks</p>

5

<p>I guess that SkyGirl accidentally omitted "time."</p>

6

<p>Either way, the correction is much better. Always find a better answer, even when one of the answer may seem correct.</p>

7

<p>8parks, you changed given structure of original sentence.</p>

<p>My correction: Mrs. Parker loves to knitt and spends most of her time doing so.</p>

8

<p>ccfaithful: read the original post..</p>

9

<p>Gosh, I did forget to affix in "time". Sorry guys.</p>

<p>The thing is the question was under "practice in identifying faulty pronoun reference", so I wanted to know why is "it" is a faulty pronoun in the original sentence. Is it wrong to use "it" to refer to infinitives.</p>

<p>And I second lol12345's question. Can anyone explain how to use "it" with verbal forms acting as nouns i.g. infinitives?</p>

10

<p>bump....bump.....</p>

11

<p>..The thing is the question was under "practice in identifying faulty pronoun reference", so I wanted to know why is "it" is a faulty pronoun in the original sentence. Is it wrong to use "it" to refer to infinitives.</p>

<p>And I second lol12345's question. Can anyone explain how to use "it" with verbal forms acting as nouns i.g. infinitives?</p>

12

<p>..bump..anyone can explain please??</p>

13

<p>As you know, "it" is a pronoun. The rule for pronouns is that they refer back to the previous noun. In this case, the noun is "time," not "knitting." So unless poor Mrs. Parker has been thrown in the slammer because of her knitting, you would want to recast the sentence.</p>

<p>In truth, I'm just kidding. No one on earth would read that sentence and think that Mrs. Parker is doing time. However, the book's correction does improve the sentence. And in general, you should always be careful with pronouns, because they can be tricky. Does this help?</p>

14

<p>That looks like a pretty advanced grammar question. I wonder if something like that would actually show up on the SAT/ACT?</p>