3 Examples of How Missing Words Cause Confusion

3 Examples of How Missing Words Cause Confusion 3 Examples of How Missing Words Cause Confusion 3 Examples of How Missing Words Cause Confusion By Mark Nichol In each of the following sentences, the absence of a word or phrase is an obstacle to clarity. Discussion after each sentence explains the problem, and a revision provides the solution. 1. The naturally occurring electrolytes are significantly higher than other brands. The comparison in this sentence is not between electrolytes and other brands; it is between electrolytes in a product marketed under one brand and electrolytes in a product marketed under other brands. This revision uses a pronoun and a preposition to communicate the true equivalency: â€Å"The naturally occurring electrolytes are significantly higher than those in other brands.† 2. The contraception app has become a popular alternative because it doesn’t involve taking any medicines, inserting devices, or hormone patches. Three older contraceptive methods are listed in counterpoint to a newer one, but while the sentence structure requires a verb to precede the word or phrase for each method, â€Å"hormone patches† lacks one. This revision inserts a verb: â€Å"The contraception app has become a popular alternative because it doesn’t involve taking any medicines, inserting devices, or using hormone patches.† 3. Financial institutions are no longer required to implement the rule and retain the option of including mandatory arbitration clauses in their contracts. This sentence is structured as if it consists of a single main clause, but logic requires that it be constructed of two independent clauses. It reads as if â€Å"implement the rule† and â€Å"retain the option . . .† are equivalent, but the complementary phrases are â€Å"are no longer required to implement the rule† and the entire portion of the sentence following the conjunction, so a noun or pronoun must be inserted after the conjunction (along with a comma before it) to form the second independent clause: â€Å"Financial institutions are no longer required to implement the rule, and they retain the option of including mandatory arbitration clauses in their contracts.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:"Latter," not "Ladder"25 Idioms with Clean