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OG parallelism & active verb vs. passive verb issue

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OG parallelism & active verb vs. passive verb issue

by Redhorsep » Thu Dec 01, 2011 6:46 pm
Hi,

I'm still not so sure why this is wrong:

Judge Bonham denied a motion to allow members of the jury to go home at the end of each day instead of to confine them to a hotel (wrong original)

to allow members of the jury to go home at the end of each day rather than be confined to (right choice)

OG explanation for the wrong choice: The passive form to be confined to is required. To allow members of the jury...to confine them illogically indicates that the jurors are doing the confining

(Can't it be that the judge or the motion confines the jurors? I can see why the right answer is right, but I don't see what's so wrong with the wrong choice, because I see another way of interpreting the sentence and thus putting items in parallel structure. Can someone explains this? Thanks!)
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by avik.ch » Fri Dec 02, 2011 1:21 am
According to the meaning of the sentence the judge denied a motion that will prevent the members to be confined at the hotels. We are not told who is confining them. But please note that the jude can't not this action as per the meaning of this sentence.

You wont pass a bill that will demand all thieves will be hanged, if you are a thief. -- dont take it personally, i just gave this analogy to clarify the meaning of this sentence. So judge is not the doing the act of confining.

I dont see any wrong in the parallelism of the original sentence ----

to allow members of the jury to go home at the end of each day -- this is a noun phrase as "to allow" is an infinitive
instead of -- the usage is correct here as we use "instead of" to compare nouns.
to confine them to a hostel. -- this is also a noun phrase as "to confine" is an infinitive

to confine them to a hotel by xxxx... imparts that some one is doing the action !!!
so the best way to remove this error is to change this into an active one and replace "instead of" with "rather than".


I hope this helps !!!
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