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Anonymous Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

Which sentence is correct?

Hi,

I have some confusion about parallel construction of sentences. Please tell me which one of the following sentence has the right structure:

People who take jobs in other countries often take their car with them

or

People who take jobs in other countries often take their cars with them

Here's another sentence that might make my problem clearer:

Many families prefer to take their vehicle along with them on a vacation

or

Many families prefer to take their vehicles along with them on a vacation

Please ignore the case in which a single person has multiple cars.

Thanks
  

Top answer

This isn't really parallelism, it's the distributive plural. If you google that phrase, you'll find more on this subject. But sadly, you won't find complete agreement.

— BarbaraPA

  • This isn't really parallelism, it's the distributive plural.
  • If you google that phrase, you'll find more on this subject.
  • But sadly, you won't find complete agreement.
  • If you assume that each person/family has ONE vehicle, then I would use the singular.
  • Common sense tells you that the entire population of vacationing families doesn't share one car.
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1 Answers
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This isn't really parallelism, it's the distributive plural. If you google that phrase, you'll find more on this subject.

But sadly, you won't find complete agreement.

If you assume that each person/family has ONE vehicle, then I would use the singular.

Common sense tells you that the entire population of vacationing families doesn't share one car.

However, a fa
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