<p>Until being widely hunted for its ivory and blubber in the eighteenth century,
walruses were plentiful in the waters of the northeastern United States.
A. Until being widely hunted for its
B. Before having been widely hunted for its
C. Up to them being widely hunted for their
D. Until they were widely hunted for their
E. Before they have been widely hunted for their</p>
<p>I understand that Choice B and E are wrong because of their tenses. Choice A has "its", which doesn't agree with "walruses". Choice C has an object pronoun followed by a gerund. I guess it should be "Up to their being widely hunted for their..."
But this question caused me to ask myself is this acceptable: </p>
<p>"Until being widely hunted for their ivory and blubber in the eighteenth century, walruses were plentiful in the waters of the northeastern United States" ?</p>
<p>Think of it this way:</p>
<p>“Until this happened, walruses were plentiful in the waters of the northeastern United States”.</p>
<p>Sound better? “Until…eighteenth century” is a prepositional phrase with a gerund construction (being widely hunted…century) acting as its object. The entire structure is one big adverb telling WHEN walruses were plentiful.</p>
<p>Thanks for your reply.</p>
<p>So, then, I think we’ve established that the sentence I wrote is correct, but wordy.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that. When a sentence has lots of words and few ideas, it’s wordy. If it has lots of words and lots of ideas, it may just be long. There’s really nothing wrong with the sentence. The gerund construction names the time you are speaking about (Eighteenth Century) , makes a statement about the subject (that walruses were hunted), and gives two reasons for the hunting (ivory and blubber), and tells how that entire construction is related to the main idea (until). That’s a respectable amount of information (5 specific details) in a reasonable number of words (13…fewer than 3 words per idea).</p>