Hard Writing questions

<p>1)If everyone (claims to be) a victim,(whom),one may ask will take responsibility for (his or her) own actions?--why is it whom and not his or her</p>

<p>2)(Resulted by) his obsession over the white whale,Ahab (sacrifices) his ship, his crew, )and his own life.) --why is sacrifices not sacrificed? and is it resulted from?</p>

<p>3) (Being absent) the day that the united nations security council voted (to enter) the korean war, the soviet delegation (never missed) another security council (again).---being absent sounds awkward but why is it wrong?</p>

<p>Thanks guys</p>

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<p>I believe you omitted a comma after “ask” in order to enclose the internal question “one may ask.” Inputting this comma should clarify the syntax:</p>

<p>If everyone claims to be a victim, whom, one may ask, will take responsibility for his or her own actions?</p>

<p>The subject of the main clause is “whom” because it is the subject of the verb phrase “will take responsibility.” “whom,” however, is an object pronoun and shouldn’t be the subject of any verb; its subject pronoun alternative is “who,” which should be used instead.</p>

<p>A couple examples of distinguishing between “who” and “whom”:</p>

<p>Who is hungry? (subject is “Who”)</p>

<p>Whom are you hungry for, Mr. Lion? (subject is “you”; “whom” is object of “for”)</p>

<p>I am hungry for whoever is tasty. (“whoever” is subject of “is”)</p>

<p>I am not hungry for whomever you place on my plate. (“whomever” is object of “place,” whose subject is “you”)</p>

<p>Note that the subject pronoun “whoever” is used in the third example sentence even though it is within an object clause: “whoever is tasty” is the object of “hungry for.” Within that clause, however, “whoever” is a subject.</p>

<p>In the sentence you provided, “his or her” is correct as the gender-neutral singular pronoun phrase, referring there to “who.” We would not use “their,” because it is plural.</p>

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<p>“Resulted by” should be “Resulting from.” “from” rather than “by” is appropriate as a matter of idiomatic correctness (similarly, one would say “caused by” rather than “caused from”). </p>

<p>The present participle “Resulting” is used because the sentence is otherwise in the present tense, and we want to ensure tense consistency. The obsession over the white whale may have begun in the past, but its continuance into the present is what directly accounts, by the syntax of the sentence, for Ahab’s sacrifices. </p>

<p>As of a matter of test-strategy pragmatics, we know “sacrifices” is correct because “Resulted by” uses the wrong preposition and only one choice in each Identifying Errors sentence may contain an error. The sentence could have been written in the past tense, as long as all verbs comported with that option. The present tense here implies that the sentence is a literary reference, and all such writing is done in the present tense.</p>

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<p>In writing a participial phrase, one has two main options in constructing the modifying phrase: Use either a simple adjective or the appropriate tense of a verb’s participle. Some examples:</p>

<p>Poor, he sold his last remaining moose action figure for three dollars.</p>

<p>Upset that the movie was over, she began to cry over having to wait until the next showing in eleven minutes.</p>

<p>Eating his dinner, he smiled with the hope of satiety. </p>

<p>Having eaten his dinner, he returned to his other activities.</p>

<p>The first two example sentences use simple adjectives to create a participial phrase to modify the respective subjects of their sentences. The latter two sentences use participle forms of verbs. “Eating” is the present participle of “to eat” (we are referring to an ongoing event). “Having eaten” uses the past participle of “to eat” because the tense must be consistent with the fact that “he returned” is in the simple past tense but the eating occurred prior to that past event, for which case we employ the past perfect: a past event before another past event.</p>

<p>Note also that when a simple adjective is used as the modifier in a participial phrase, the meaning is synonymous with that yielded when the form “to be [adjective]” is used. For example: </p>

<p>Being poor, he sold his last remaining moose action figure for three dollars.</p>

<p>Being upset that the movie was over, she began to cry over having to wait until the next showing in eleven minutes.</p>

<p>These sentences mean the same as they did before. </p>

<p>The sentence you provided,</p>

<p>Being absent the day that the United Nations security council voted to enter the Korean War, the Soviet delegation never missed another security council again.</p>

<p>apparently opts for that secondary approach of forming a participial phrase using a simple adjective but in the form “to be [adjective],” wherein the adjective is herein “absent.” The sentence uses the present tense of “to be”: “Being.” </p>

<p>Is the present tense correct, though? Logically, the delegation’s never missing another council occurred after its first missing a council. That never missing is expressed using the past tense. As covered, a past action that occurs prior to another past action is expressed in the past perfect form. Therefore, “to be” ought to be conjugated not to “Being” but to “Having been,” its past participle. So the sentence should read:</p>

<p>Having been absent the day that the United Nations security council voted to enter the Korean War, the Soviet delegation never missed another security council again.</p>

<p>Another option would be to omit the verb phrase and use simply the adjective, obviating the need to establish the appropriate tense, writing:</p>

<p>Absent the day that the United Nations security council voted to enter the Korean War, the Soviet delegation never missed another security council again.</p>

<p>I hope these explanations help you out. Let me know if you need clarification.</p>