Why don't be "-ed" here?

Question

This is original sentence

Three employees of electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc. died Wednesday when their small plane crashed in a residential neighborhood in California's Silicon Valley, causing a major power outage in the city of Palo Alto but injuring no one on the ground.

how about this modified sentence with "-ed"
Three employees of electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc. died Wednesday when their small plane crashed in a residential neighborhood in California's Silicon Valley, caused a major power outage in the city of Palo Alto but injured no one on the ground.

anything wrong above sentence! please clarify about "wrong thing"

thanks a lot

Mr Wordy · Accepted Answer

The modified sentence is grammatically possible but sounds strange to me. "their small plane ... caused a major power outage ... " seems to be missing the ingredient that it was the crash that caused this. Generally, the modified sentence seems to be describing a sequence of consecutive actions that the plane itself did (or didn't do) rather than describing the crash and its consequences as we would like.

Dimsumexpress · Answer

I am not completely certain if these are flaws I have observed in this passage. But this is what I see:

When reporting a tragic event (like the plane crash ) with subordinate conjunction such as "when", "after" or before", or many like them, we are actually suggesting that we have confident knowledge about the sequence of how the event unfolded. In this case, when- they died. So to avoid this, we should be careful when and where to place the subordinate conjunctions. I would reword it as follows:
Three employees of [the] electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc. died Wednesday in a plane crash after their twin-engine plane clipped a major power line in a residential neighborhood in California's Silicon Valley, [and] caused a major power outage in the City of Palo Alto~~. but~~ Miraculously no one was injured on the ground.

Nithilawhen their small plane crashed in a residential neighborhood in California's Silicon Valley<,> caused a major power outage in the city of Palo Alto but injured no one on the

I've observed a comma splice problem in the original text. The entire sentence should read:
Three employees of electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc. died Wednesday when their small plane crashed in a residential neighborhood in California's Silicon Valley [and] caused a major power outage in the city of Palo....

BillJ · Answer

Mr Wordy
The modified sentence is grammatically possible but sounds strange to me. "their small plane ... caused a major power outage ... " seems to be missing the ingredient that it was the crash that caused this. Generally, the modified sentence seems to be describing a sequence of consecutive actions that the plane itself did (or didn't do) rather than describing the crash and its consequences as we would like.

Hi,

I think you’re on the right lines with that, Mr. Wordy, but I might just expand the argument somewhat.

The second of the poster's sentences (using the -ed past tense), although grammatical, doesn’t really scan well. The reason, I think, centres on the two clauses, ‘caused a major power outage….’ and ‘but injured no one…’ They are finite clauses which here, as you say, are used in a sort of 'list of events'.

Although both clauses share the same subject, i.e. ‘their small plane’, (ellipted in those clauses), they are a bit too distant from the subject to maintain a smooth subject/predicate flow. If we 'fill out' the ellipsis, we can see what the reader really has to think to himself as he scans the sentence:

Three employees of electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc. died Wednesday when their small plane crashed in a residential neighborhood in California’s Silicon Valley; (their small plane) caused a major power outage in the city of Palo Alto, but (their small plane) injured no one on the ground.

There’s no problem with subject/predicate relationship if one writes it that way, but isn’t it clumsy?

However, if the clauses were shorter, the closer subject/predicate would make things easier for the reader, for example:

'...died Wednesday when their small plane crashed, caused a major power outage, but injured no one…

But conversely, adverbial -ing nonfinite clauses, as used in the poster's first sentence, don’t seem bothered by the absence of a subject (overt or ellipted) because each successive clause seems to refer back to the whole of the previous clause(s); in a way this helps to maintain the flow so the reader doesn't lose sight of the subject and the damage it did, or didn't do as the events unfold.

What do you think?

BillJ

Mr Wordy · Answer

BillJWhat do you think?

I'm not sure how much of a role the distance between the subject and the subsequent clauses plays. The following sentence, with equally large gaps, seems acceptable to me:

"Their sports car hit an oncoming truck at over one hundred miles per hour, rolled over several times and eventually came to rest across the central reservation."

Conversely, your much shortened version of the original still feels a bit strange to me:

"...died Wednesday when their small plane crashed, caused a major power outage, but injured no one (on the ground)"

I still prefer:

"...died Wednesday when their small plane crashed, causing a major power outage, but injuring no one (on the ground)"

Dimsumexpress · Answer

Mr WordyI still prefer:

"...died Wednesday when their small plane crashed, causing a major power outage, but injuring no one (on the ground)"

I think present particple clauses would work in certain contexts with similar constructs, but in the plane crash scenario, I would personally prefer a parallel past tense construct "crashed and casued". Using particple clause (causing and injuring) offers a sense of continual action which is contrary to the abrupt ending of the crash. Am I making sense?

Mr Wordy · Answer

dimsumexpress
I think present particple clauses would work in certain contexts with similar constructs, but in the plane crash scenario, I would personally prefer a parallel past tense construct "crashed and casued". Using particple clause (causing and injuring) offers a sense of continual action which is contrary to the abrupt ending of the crash. Am I making sense?

In this sentence, I read the present participles as indicating consequence rather than continuous action. Journalists are particularly fond of this usage, I think.

Why don't be "-ed" here?

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