Five Parallelism Problems in In-Line Lists

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Constructing an in-line list — a series of items in a sentence — seems like a straightforward task, but writers frequently err in their attempts to produce parallel structure. The following sentences illustrate some of the pitfalls of parallel construction and how to fix them.

1. “You can pay using your bank account, debit, or credit cards.”
This list refers to two types of financial resources: a bank account and a card (two types of which are mentioned). The sentence structure mistakenly suggests that the list consists of three elements, rather than two (“your bank account” and “a debit or credit card”), one of which is a compound item — one consisting of two or more nouns or noun phrases. The following revision reflects the correct organization: “You can pay using your bank account or a debit or credit card.”

2. “Her writing was accurate, complete, and demonstrated attention to detail.”
Of the three items in this list, two are accompanied by verbs, but the writer has erroneously assumed that complete can share the verb that precedes accurate. It can do so, but only if accurate and complete are linked with a conjunction rather than separated by a comma: “Her writing was accurate and complete and demonstrated attention to detail.”

3. “It’s free, secure, and takes no time at all.”
This sentence suffers from the same slight but clumsy error as the one in the preceding example. It can be solved in the same way (“It’s free and secure, and it takes no time at all”) — a comma is required before the conjunction in this case because the pronoun’s presence makes the second clause an independent one. Alternatively, each item in the list can be assigned its own pronoun: “It’s free, it’s secure, and it takes no time at all.”

4. “The pension system divested in firms doing business with apartheid-era South Africa, avoided oil and energy investments in Iran, and it dropped tobacco companies from its portfolio in 2008.”
Here, too, the problem is of inconsistency of structure, but because the subject is a noun and the sentence is more complex, the simple error might not be apparent. Basically, each segment of the sentence needs a subject noun or a pronoun as if it were a distinct sentence, or, better, all segments must share the subject: “The pension system divested in firms doing business with apartheid-era South Africa, avoided oil and energy investments in Iran, and dropped tobacco companies from its portfolio in 2008.” (Alternatively, the comma following Africa could be replaced by and, but the lengthy sentence is better served by a rest-stop comma rather than another move-along conjunction.)

5. “There’s the Coke bottle and the old glove and sailboats gliding along the bay.”
This sentence (referring to iconic features at a baseball stadium) almost works in its relaxed state, unhindered by internal punctuation. But the lack of a comma suggests that all three things glide along the bay. A comma after “old glove” will catch that noun phrase and the preceding one, reserving the gliding action for the sailboats alone: “There’s the Coke bottle and the old glove, and sailboats gliding along the bay.”

Five Examples of the Need for Multiple Hyphenation

Complex and compound phrasal adjectives, in which more than two words unite to modify a noun that follows the phrase, pose a challenge for many writers. How many hyphens are required, and where do they go? These examples demonstrate the proper application of hyphens in such cases.

1. “He broke the 21-year old world record at the tournament.”

Hyphenation errors frequently occur in references to age or duration. In this case, the reference seems to be to an old record of a 21-year nature, but it can mean only that a record that has stood for 21 years has been broken. The record is 21 years old, so those three terms should be hyphenated together: “He broke the 21-year-old world record at the tournament.” (Or, if the number is spelled out, “He broke the twenty-one-year-old world record at the tournament.”)

2. “The project exemplifies his wheeling and dealing ways.”

The ways described involve wheeling and dealing. Because the two verbs are often used in tandem as an idiom referring to underhanded negotiations, they and the intervening conjunction should all be linked: “The project exemplifies his wheeling-and-dealing ways.”

3. “They’re taking a wait and see approach.”

As with “wheeling and dealing,” “wait and see” is an idiom; it means that observers will refrain from interference or deliberation until a catalyzing event occurs. All the words in the phrase should be hyphenated together: “They’re taking a wait-and-see approach.”

4. “He sustained non-life threatening injuries in the accident.”

As styled, the central phrase seems to refer to threatening injuries not associated with life. But the reference applies to injuries that are not threatening to life. Although non would normally be attached directly to a root word (for example, in nonprofit), in this case, because it is associated with the entire phrase “life-threatening injuries,” it is correctly attached to life with a hyphen. But life-threatening is a stock phrasal adjective, and a hyphen should connect those two terms here as well: “He sustained non-life-threatening injuries in the accident.”

5. “The soldiers were injured in a rocket-propelled grenade attack.”

This sentence implies that the soldiers were injured in a grenade attack that was rocket propelled — meaning that enemy troops themselves were propelled by rockets as they threw grenades. But the weapons were rocket-propelled grenades. Because this phrase modifies attack, grenade is attached to rocket-propelled: “The soldiers were injured in a rocket-propelled-grenade attack.”