Is this sentence grammatically correct?

Question

The new prime minister is a former department head of MI6, a one time governmental advisor, and served three consecutive terms as a member of parliament.

Umbungoumbungo77 · Accepted Answer

anyone?

JohnParis · Answer

Very interesting question.
Assuming that the prime minister is from a country where cumulative mandates are not permitted, I would say "The new prime minister was a former department head of MI6, a one time governmental advisor (adviser), and served three consecutive terms as a member of parliament."
I'll be interested to see what my colleagues say.

Anonymous · Answer

Hello,

A book entitled An American Rhetoric by William W. Watt (which I used in college during the 1950's!) has this

sentence:

"He is honest, hard-working, patriotic, and has a firm nature."

Mr. Watts believes that this sentence lacks parallelism, That is, there are three adjectives, and then it changes to a clause.

Mr. Watts feels this is more parallel (MY NOTE: all parts belong to the same class of word):

He is honest, hard-working, patriotic, and firm. (Now "is" is followed by four adjectives.)

*****

If you accept Mr. Watts's advice, then I am guessing that the following sentence might be better:

"The new prime minister is a former department head of MI6, a one-time governmental adviser, and a fomer member of

Parliament, where he served three consecutive terms."

Now you have parallelism. That is, "is" is followed by three nouns.

HAVE A NICE DAY!

JohnParis · Answer

Dear umbungoumbungo77

JamesM's reply is infinitely better than mine and I advise you to follow his suggestion fully. It's very good writing.

John

Is this sentence grammatically correct?

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