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OG SC #52

by mundasingh123 » Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:00 am
To Josephine Baker, Paris was her home long before it
was fashionable to be an expatriate, and she remained
in France during the Second World War as a performer
and an intelligence agent for the Resistance.
(A) To Josephine Baker, Paris was her home long
before it was fashionable to be an expatriate,
(B) For Josephine Baker, long before it was
fashionable to be an expatriate, Paris was her
home,
(C) Josephine Baker made Paris her home long
before to be an expatriate was fashionable,
(D) Long before it was fashionable to be an
expatriate, Josephine Baker made Paris
her home,
(E) Long before it was fashionable being an
expatriate, Paris was home to Josephine Baker,
How to eliminate C ?
My question is not How to arrive at the OA
OAD
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by HSPA » Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:17 am
To be Frank.. I dont know the meaning of expatriate.

From the original stem I can see expatriate is qualifying Paris

C: In C Baker is getting qualified(by the words expatriate and fashionable)
B: How to get rid of this? I liked it too
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by aspirant2011 » Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:23 am
I feel B is wrong because of modifier problem as the placement of long before it was fashionable to be an expatriate.....................I think a comma shouldn't have been there between long before and Paris.............
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by mundasingh123 » Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:41 am
aspirant2011 wrote:I feel B is wrong because of modifier problem as the placement of long before it was fashionable to be an expatriate.....................I think a comma shouldn't have been there between long before and Paris.............
Still Looking for a Grammatical explanation for C and now B, Thanks to HSPA
From OG
Th is compound sentence (consisting of two
independent clauses joined by the coordinating
conjunction and) would be most clearly expressed
if Josephine Baker were the subject of the fi rst
clause since she is the subject of the second clause:
Josephine Baker made Paris her home would clearly
parallel she remained in France. Th e adverb clause
long ... expatriate is best placed before the main
clause.
I may compromise on B but still want to know why C is wrong .
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by GMATGuruNY » Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:59 am
mundasingh123 wrote:
aspirant2011 wrote:I feel B is wrong because of modifier problem as the placement of long before it was fashionable to be an expatriate.....................I think a comma shouldn't have been there between long before and Paris.............
Still Looking for a Grammatical explanation for C and now B, Thanks to HSPA
From OG
Th is compound sentence (consisting of two
independent clauses joined by the coordinating
conjunction and) would be most clearly expressed
if Josephine Baker were the subject of the fi rst
clause since she is the subject of the second clause:
Josephine Baker made Paris her home would clearly
parallel she remained in France. Th e adverb clause
long ... expatriate is best placed before the main
clause.
I may compromise on B but still want to know why C is wrong .
There are two primary ways -- one rare, one far more common -- that an infinitive will serve as the subject of a clause or a sentence.

RARE: INFINITIVE + TO BE + ADJECTIVE
TO ERR is human.
Here, TO ERR is the subject.
Generally, this construction is used to express a GENERAL PRINCIPLE.
It is NOT typically used to express a past event.

COMMON: IT + TO BE + ADJECTIVE + INFINITIVE
It was easy to like Mary.
In this construction, it is an expletive: a pronoun serving to delay the subject.
Here, the delayed subject is TO LIKE MARY.
The conveyed meaning is as follows:
To like Mary was easy.
But positioning the infinitive-as-subject before the verb results in a construction that is awkward and to be avoided.
In 99% of cases, an infinitive serving as the subject will be preceded by an expletive such as IT:
It was easy to like Mary.

Since the SC above is discussing not a general principle but a past event, the construction in C -- long before TO BE an expatriate WAS fashionable -- is awkward and inappropriate.
An expletive is needed:
Long before IT was fashionable TO BE an expatriate, Josephine Baker made Paris her home.
Last edited by GMATGuruNY on Wed Jul 11, 2012 9:19 am, edited 2 times in total.
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by GMATGuruNY » Fri Jun 10, 2011 8:21 am
HSPA wrote:To be Frank.. I dont know the meaning of expatriate.

From the original stem I can see expatriate is qualifying Paris

C: In C Baker is getting qualified(by the words expatriate and fashionable)
B: How to get rid of this? I liked it too
An expatriate is a person who lives outside his or her native country.
In the SC above, Josephine Baker is the expatriate.

In B, long before it was fashionable to be an expatriate seems to modify Paris, the noun that follows.
Thus, B can be eliminated.
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by vikram4689 » Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:06 am
GMATGuruNY wrote:
mundasingh123 wrote:
aspirant2011 wrote:I feel B is wrong because of modifier problem as the placement of long before it was fashionable to be an expatriate.....................I think a comma shouldn't have been there between long before and Paris.............
Still Looking for a Grammatical explanation for C and now B, Thanks to HSPA
From OG
Th is compound sentence (consisting of two
independent clauses joined by the coordinating
conjunction and) would be most clearly expressed
if Josephine Baker were the subject of the fi rst
clause since she is the subject of the second clause:
Josephine Baker made Paris her home would clearly
parallel she remained in France. Th e adverb clause
long ... expatriate is best placed before the main
clause.
I may compromise on B but still want to know why C is wrong .
Generally, a preposition (such as before) should not be followed by an infinitive (such as to be).

Incorrect: I knew the answer without to look.

The gerund form of the verb is preferred:

Correct: I knew the answer without looking.

C can be eliminated because the preposition before is followed by the infinitive to be.
mitch,
preposition has to follow a NOUN/GERUND. but here 'before' is acting as conjunction and 'To be an expatriate' is a noun phrase, then why it is wrong
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:50 am
vikram4689 wrote: mitch,
preposition has to follow a NOUN/GERUND. but here 'before' is acting as conjunction and 'To be an expatriate' is a noun phrase, then why it is wrong
No, they don't. Prepositions can be used after other parts of speech; prepositional phrases are often used as adverbs.
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by vikram4689 » Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:03 pm
Bill@VeritasPrep wrote:
vikram4689 wrote: mitch,
preposition has to follow a NOUN/GERUND. but here 'before' is acting as conjunction and 'To be an expatriate' is a noun phrase, then why it is wrong
No, they don't. Prepositions can be used after other parts of speech; prepositional phrases are often used as adverbs.
oh i meant preposition has to be followed by a NOUN/GERUND. but here 'before' is acting as conjunction and 'To be an expatriate' is a noun phrase, then why it is wrong
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by GMATGuruNY » Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:35 am
vikram4689 wrote: mitch,
preposition has to follow a NOUN/GERUND. but here 'before' is acting as conjunction and 'To be an expatriate' is a noun phrase, then why it is wrong
Please see my amended post above.
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