In 1713, Alexander Pope began his translation of the Iliad, a work that, taking him seven years until completion, and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced the greatest translation in any language.
(A) his translation of the Iliad, a work that, taking him seven years until completion, and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced - NO verb for subject - "that"

(B) his translation of the Iliad, a work that took him seven years to complete and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced - CORRECT

(C) his translation of the Iliad, a work that had taken seven years to complete and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced it as - Incorrect verb tense - had taken. The action "took" completed at a point in time in the past so no need of perfect tense. Also, no need to use past perfect.

(D) translating the Iliad, a work that took seven years until completion and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced it as - Extra "it". No need of "it". "until completion" is awkward. Incorrect modifier - work modifies Iliad instead of the translation of Iliad.


(E) translating the Iliad, a work that had taken seven years to complete and literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced it - same as D with verb tense error as well.

rishijhawar wrote:48. In 1713, Alexander Pope began his translation of the Iliad, a work that, taking him seven years until completion, and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced the greatest translation in any language.
(A) his translation of the Iliad, a work that, taking him seven years until completion, and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced
(B) his translation of the Iliad, a work that took him seven years to complete and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced
(C) his translation of the Iliad, a work that had taken seven years to complete and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced it as
(D) translating the Iliad, a work that took seven years until completion and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced it as
(E) translating the Iliad, a work that had taken seven years to complete and literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced it

[spoiler]OA-D. Would be great if you could please explain rationale for all the options
[/spoiler]

Hi Rishi,
Buddy you should check your answer it should be B only, it cant be D, because D has issues many issues as marked by deep.amangmat.

Thanks All. Sure Calvin, will do.

Aman, in D, you mentioned work modifies Iliad instead of the translation of Iliad. Doesn't the same logic applies in B. I see B makes more sense, but not 100% sure in this context. Thanks

Hmm I see what you are asking. Well I myself was stuck with this initially. But even if you cannot get to this error in Choice D, there is one another error - "it" pronoun. So you would have eliminated this choice based on pronoun error.

Now your question why the difference in modifier reference between the two expressions
- translating the Iliad
- translation of the Iliad

I can reason this in my mind. But I am not sure if I can explain this well enough in grammatical terms. I will give it a shot anyways.

When I say translating the Iliad, I am refering to an action
translating
translating what
translating the Iliad.
so Iliad is a separate entity here

On the other hand, when I say translation of the Iliad, I have one single noun phrase - translation of the Iliad. This is considered as a single entity.

Hope this makes sense. As I said earlier, I can reason it in my mind and see how these two are different, but I may not have been able to communicate the difference in terms of grammatical terms.

Would be great if someone else or an expert could chip in here.

Thanks,

Aman

Hi, can we have an expert comment here. thx