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Yankee Peddler and Lincoln

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Yankee Peddler and Lincoln

by manish_shr » Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:07 am
Lincoln, discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him, knew how to use a good story to generate good will.

A. Lincoln, discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him, knew

B. Discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him, Lincoln knew

C. Lincoln, discovering the secret that the Yankee peddler had learned in young manhood before him, knew

D. In young manhood Lincoln discovered the secret that the Yankee peddler had learned before him;

E. Lincoln, discovered in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler had learned before him, knew

OA is b

Please explain.
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by bmlaud » Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:46 am
I go with B

discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him- is a adverbial clause. Here it separates subject (Lincoln) and verb ( Knew) and makes the sentence awkward.

Option B correctly brings subject and verb together.

Note: This doesn't hold true for adjective clause or phrase.
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by dendude » Mon Feb 09, 2009 12:14 pm
I agree that B makes the most logical modifier, but I'm confused with the tense.
Should it not be had instead of has??
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by mrsmarthi » Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:05 pm
IMO B.

Lincoln, discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him, knew how to use a good story to generate good will.

Subject is "Lincoln"
Verb is "knew"
Object is "how to use a good story to generate good will".

"Discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him" is the modifier describing Lincoln.

Rule is when a long modifier is describing a subject, let that be precedded so that the Subject and the verb are together for better concise.

A / C are out.

D / E are changing the meaning of the sentence. Hence out.

Left with B.
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by sjd00d » Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:11 pm
I am not convinced with B. I am going with D. I don't seem to find it modifying the meaning. The "has discovered" in B has got to be wrong.
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by tanviet » Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:58 pm
in a, "discovering" is participle which mean " discover, discovered, will discover...." and dose not mean " progressive"

in b, "discovering" is adverbial and has meaning of "progressive" .

the meaning of "progressive" is not required here, so b is wrong. A is correct

this question is similar to a quesion in OG 11" many person willing to accept..... analytical skill"

however, I do not fully understand this problem, pls, help

hello friends, we should focus on understand questions in OG 11 properly. because they are OFFICIAL.
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