Parallel sentence structure

Forums:
Email this Topic • Print this Page

Hi, does the given under sentence sound right in English language, or there is a tense shift in verbs?

2/3 of them are actually Russian-speaking descendants [...], who either REPARTED after the USSR collapsed, or ARE just LOOKING for temporary employment.

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Question • Score: 0 • Views: 327 • Replies: 11

No top replies

1. Never start a sentence with a figure. You need "Two thirds" at the beginning.

2. Reparted is not an English word.

3. Other than those things, the sentence is fine. Tenses can be mixed.

1 Reply

Quote centrox:

Quote:

2. Reparted is not an English word.

Offhand, I can't recall hearing it in speech. Believe it or not, dictionary.com has it as a legit word:

Quote:

v.
1570s, "divide up," from re- + part (v.). Related: Reparted; reparting.

Source

If the meaning is to part once more, I would guess you might be better understood if you just said "parted once more", or to spell it re-parted. However, at least one source says using "reparted" is okay.

2 Replies

@Blickers,

Good'n' Blick, I went thru the same grammatical convolutions
...not often Cen's wrong

0 Replies

I think Occam's razor says it's a typo for 'departed'.

0 Replies

@Blickers,

Blickers wrote:

1570s, "divide up," from re- + part (v.). Related: Reparted; reparting.[/color]

But you wouldn't use it with 'from' and a place. See my post just above.

0 Replies

@centrox,

Thanks for noticing other mistakes. This sentence was taken from Wikipedia web page. That is why it sounds odd to me.

1 Reply

@Sweet-sweet,

Sweet-sweet wrote:

Thanks for noticing other mistakes. This sentence was taken from Wikipedia web page. That is why it sounds odd to me.

Mystery solved. The sentence was changed by you.

Two-thirds of them are actually Russian-speaking descendants of Germans, Greeks, Jews, Azerbaijanis, Armenians or Ukrainians, who either repatriated after the USSR collapsed, or are just looking for temporary employment.

2 Replies

@centrox,

centrox wrote:

descendants of Germans, Greeks, Jews, Azerbaijanis, Armenians or Ukrainians, who either repatriated after the USSR collapsed

Whoever wrote this on Wikipedia (note: Wikipedia is suspicious, noting "[citation needed]") is almost certainly not a native English speaker. He or she does not understand what the verb "repatriate" means. He or she uses it as if it is intransitive and means "change home country" (to Australia), but it is transitive and means "send [someone] back to their country of birth".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language

0 Replies

Oh, yes, I made a misspell) So, does this sentence is correct by using different tenses? Maybe it should be like this: "Two-thirds of them are actually Russian-speaking descendants of Germans, Greeks, Jews, Azerbaijanis, Armenians or Ukrainians, who either repatriated after the USSR collapsed, or just came to look for temporary employment"?

0 Replies

@centrox,

Centrox, would you share with me the way how you have found this sentence in Wikipedia please?

1 Reply

@Sweet-sweet,

Sweet-sweet wrote:

Centrox, would you share with me the way how you have found this sentence in Wikipedia please?

Pasted it into Google.

Note what I wrote about the meaning of 'repatriate'.

0 Replies

Forums
» Parallel sentence structure

Read Question
Reply to All

Parallel sentence structure

Quick Links

My Account

able2know