paralling items

Question

if there are more than one items paralling in one sentence, the sentence can be : "Something includes A, B,C and D". but if it is "Something includes A, B and C and D?" are they the same thing or in the second sentence B and C is one thing? i hope i am not confusing you by my poor english and hope someone can understand and explain it to me. thank you!

MrPedantic · Accepted Answer

Hello Mash

Is this the kind of thing you mean?

1. The price includes travel, accommodation, meals and a day trip to Vienna.

2. The price includes travel, bed and breakfast, and a day trip to Vienna.

Or did you mean something else?

MrP

Mashmellow · Answer

hi MrP. the sentence i met is "But it will have done some good if it can persuade the various business lobbies,multilateral organisations and aid and environmental groups to get out of their ideological bunkers and work together for sustainable development."

i want to know if "multilateral organisations and aid" is two things related to each other or two independent things. if they are two independent things, can we use A, B and C and D to express that? i thought it usually is A, B,C and D.thank you!

Nona the brit · Answer

Hi

I think in this case they are all separate entities but they didn't want to write '...organisations, aid groups and environmental groups....'

I think you just hae to use common sense to work out what goes with what. 'persuade the various multilateral organisations and aid' doesn't make much sense because you end up thinking persuade the aid whats? Aid groups. You can't persuade aid itself of anything, it being just a big pile of money or goods etc. These sentences can be quite ambigious at times though so you need to be very careful when you write one.

Also, I hope you don't mind me pointing out a little error in your post. You cannot meet a sentence. You can meet people (and I suppose animals) but you cannot meet things. You saw the sentence. (Learners often say they meet a sentence. I suspect that meet is used in this way in some other languages, but I'm afraid it doesn't work in English).

BarbaraPA · Answer

This is an EXCELLENT case for the serial comma. The serial comma would have greatly helped avoid confusion.

Mashmellow · Answer

hi,nona!

Thank you for pointing out my mistakes and giving advice. it really helped. i thought meet a sentence is the same as meet a problem. by the way, is the latter correct?

BarbaraPA · Answer

No, you have a problem. You see a sentence. You meet a person.

Not that YOU have any problems, of course

Davkett · Answer

Nona The Brit you cannot meet things.

Just a little loophole to fill, Nona--

One can meet requirements, situations, expectations. Here, meet means fulfill. Such meaning is not usually suggested by meeting a sentence.

When meet means encounter, though, I'd think it can be used for any situation where the 'things' that meet have been given attributions of independent force, if only poetically speaking. In that sense, meeting a sentence is like meeting a challenge.

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