<ol>
<li>Critics contend that<a href="A">/u</a> reforms in welfare has not managed<a href="B">/u</a> to bring the high percentage of our nation's children living in poverty the economic security that they need<a href="C">/u</a> to thrive<a href="D">/u</a>.</li>
</ol>
<p>I completely overlooked B (the correct answer) when I was first doing this problem, though now it seems obvious, and chose C instead. But isn't C, "they need", wrong as well? "They" is a pronoun without a distinct antecedent; grammatically speaking it could be any one out of: "critics", "reforms", or "children".</p>
<p>(This question was in the blue book btw)</p>
<p>Huh? It’s neither A nor C. It’s B. Reforms are plural, so they HAVE not managed to bring blabla. And no, reforms don’t need anything to “thrive.” Critics don’t need reforms in economic situation regarding poverty to thrive. It’s not ambiguous at all.</p>
<p>What IS wrong with A? I don’t get it.</p>
<p>My bad, I made a typo. B is the correct answer.</p>
<p>Logically speaking it makes sense that “they” refers to “children”, but is it grammatically correct to use a pronoun when it could possibly refer to several antecedents? </p>
<p>I mean, the sentence “A gifted writer, Mark Twain’s work is heralded as the epitome of American writing” makes sense logically, i.e. we can infer what the sentence means, even though it’s absolutely grammatically wrong to our trained eyes. Aren’t these two errors essentially the same idea?</p>
<p>NO! That’s wrong because Mark Twain’s work isn’t a gifted writer. A gifted writer refers to what follows, which is Mark Twain.</p>
<p>The first one is both grammatically and logically consistent. </p>
<p>Part 1 - Critics contend.</p>
<p>Part 2 - the contention - reforms haven’t brought something about</p>
<p>Part 3 - what haven’t they brought about - changes in economic situation</p>
<p>Part 4 - What would the changes affect - the children living in poverty</p>
<p>Part 5 - What the changes should accomplish - thriving of the children.</p>
<p>When you see the nesting in the sentence, you know that the whole sentence is an elaboration on what the critics are saying. BUT, if it really did refer to the critics, then the whole info about economy etc would be a modifier only and need commas, since critics would then be the main subject. See what I mean?</p>
<p>I know, but the point was that you can deduce that the intended meaning of the sentence was that Mark Twain is a gifted writer, because logically Mark Twain’s work wouldn’t make sense. Similarly, you can deduce the intended meaning that “they” refers to children and not critics or reforms because it wouldn’t make sense. But even though you intuitively know what the sentence means, it still has an error.</p>
<p>Wait, I actually don’t understand what you’re saying. If they referred to critics, wouldn’t the sentence just look like this?</p>
<p>“Critics contend that reforms in welfare have not managed to bring…the economic security that critics need to thrive.”</p>
<p>There’s no need for commas anywhere…</p>
<p>Yes, but the bit about the children and poverty would be extra information that would need commas.</p>
<p>Critics contend that reforms in welfare have not managed to bring the high percentage of our children living in poverty the economic security that the critics need to thrive. - That makes no sense, but is grammatically correct.</p>
<p>The Twain example makes sense, but is grammatically incorrect. </p>
<p>If it was about the critics, it would be something like this:</p>
<p>Critics, who are concerned about the high percentage of our nation’s children living in poverty, contend that reforms …</p>
<p>I’m not really sure where you’re getting confused. It has no error, intuitively or technically. The Twain sentence does, on the other hand - and even intuitively, for me, for when I see a comma after a noun, I expect a description. If you’re looking for errors when you can’t find one intuitively, go by the book.</p>
<p>Let’s say B was “have”. Then the question is about economic security. Poverty is mentioned. Critics are educated people. Probably not impoverished. The reforms haven’t brought something to someone they should get. If the reforms were to bring something to someone so that someone else could thrive, for example aid for cancer research that patients need for better treatment, then you see cause and effect. You can nitpick, but just cuz there is more than one possible antecedent doesn’t make it an ambiguous pronoun. </p>
<p>Ambiguity is almost always more of a logical than a grammatical error.</p>