Sentence Correction

We enjoy meeting people having different interests.

Corrected sentence:- We enjoy meeting people who have different interests. (Agreed)
The sentence is a better construction. I don't know how to identify that a better construction is needed even if the original sentence is grammatically correct.

Look at the answer choices.

Quick lesson here:

"Who" (like "where", "which", etc.) is a reflexive pronoun, meaning that it modifies the word that comes directly next to it. In your corrected sentence, who takes the role of subject for "having", letting us know that the people we meet are the ones who have different interests.

Without that reflexive pronoun, it's unclear which noun owns "having". Is it "we" (we enjoy meeting...and having) or the people we meet?

When assessing answer choices, if you see that one could introduce ambiguity and another directly fixes that, leaving no room for doubt, pick the one that is crystal clear.

Brian@VeritasPrep wrote:Quick lesson here:

"Who" (like "where", "which", etc.) is a reflexive pronoun, meaning that it modifies the word that comes directly next to it. In your corrected sentence, who takes the role of subject for "having", letting us know that the people we meet are the ones who have different interests.

Without that reflexive pronoun, it's unclear which noun owns "having". Is it "we" (we enjoy meeting...and having) or the people we meet?

When assessing answer choices, if you see that one could introduce ambiguity and another directly fixes that, leaving no room for doubt, pick the one that is crystal clear.

Hi Brian , I still dont understand why

We enjoy meeting people having different interests.

is an ambiguous sentence
When there is no "and " how can having refer to WE

Good question, mundasingh - and I guess I'll follow by asking how we'd know that "having different interests" applies to "people". "People" is the object of the subject "We", and "having" where it is doesn't set it up as a subject.

You could probably find several ways to describe the flaw in the original:

-I'd argue that it's confusing because you've already assigned a present-tense verb to "we", so it looks to be parallel to "meeting" without any real indication that it's not.

-Similarly "having" is a present tense verb, which doesn't really fit in terms of tense. "People who have different interests" is an indicative verb - it talks about who these people are in a general sense. "Having" is temporary and current, which isn't a logical meaning. I don't enjoy meeting someone who has a fleeting interest in art but could give it up at any minute, I want to meet someone who truly has that interest!

-You really do need a word to turn the object of one clause into the subject of the next; here, you either need "who" to indicate that the people we meet have that interest, or "while" to link it back to us.

-Most importantly, on the GMAT you see 5 options and pick one. I would never write the original sentence as written and I fully believe it to be grammatically incorrect. But on the test the beautiful thing is that you get to compare. When I see the second sentence it's crystal clear who does what, and sheds some light on ways in which the original could be a little ambiguous. In that situation, go for clarity. You'll probably never get to the point at which you can always say for certain that a sentence is right or wrong - there are shades of gray out there and even where there's certitude your mind will play tricks on you. But this test isn't one of who should be an editor at a newspaper; it's one of who can make good decisions when presented with options. So "look for clarity" is a great rule...the clearer the sentence the better.

Thanks Brian for the Explanation.

-Similarly "having" is a present tense verb, which doesn't really fit in terms of tense. "People who have different interests" is an indicative verb - it talks about who these people are in a general sense. "Having" is temporary and current, which isn't a logical meaning. I don't enjoy meeting someone who has a fleeting interest in art but could give it up at any minute, I want to meet someone who truly has that interest!

This was a very helpful point .
But isnt "having " a present participle noun modifier .Since -ing noun modifier modifies the noun closest to it , i assumed that "having" modifies people.
In view of the above quoted portion , we could reject this sentence on grounds of logic . But isnt what i said about noun modifiers correct ?
Thanks

mundasingh123 wrote:Thanks Brian for the Explanation.

-Similarly "having" is a present tense verb, which doesn't really fit in terms of tense. "People who have different interests" is an indicative verb - it talks about who these people are in a general sense. "Having" is temporary and current, which isn't a logical meaning. I don't enjoy meeting someone who has a fleeting interest in art but could give it up at any minute, I want to meet someone who truly has that interest!

This was a very helpful point .
But isnt "having " a present participle noun modifier .Since -ing noun modifier modifies the noun closest to it , i assumed that "having" modifies people.
In view of the above quoted portion , we could reject this sentence on grounds of logic . But isnt what i said about noun modifiers correct ?
Thanks

Thank you all for taking time out and replying.

I saw Brian's response and agree with it to an extent. Also the point raised by mundasingh123 is valid. I did my own research at other standardized sources of written English.

I found that "having different interests" is used as an adjective here. It is telling us more about the object i.e. people. "having different interests" is exactly not a present participle but a perfect participle. Perfect participles are not used in the way e.g.

Do you know anyone having lost a cat?

The right usage is :- Do you know anyone who's lost a cat?

Therefore "We enjoy meeting people who have different interests." is the correct usage.

what are your thoughts over this.

Best Regards,
JOHN

saurabh2525_gupta wrote:

mundasingh123 wrote:Thanks Brian for the Explanation.

-Similarly "having" is a present tense verb, which doesn't really fit in terms of tense. "People who have different interests" is an indicative verb - it talks about who these people are in a general sense. "Having" is temporary and current, which isn't a logical meaning. I don't enjoy meeting someone who has a fleeting interest in art but could give it up at any minute, I want to meet someone who truly has that interest!

This was a very helpful point .
But isnt "having " a present participle noun modifier .Since -ing noun modifier modifies the noun closest to it , i assumed that "having" modifies people.
In view of the above quoted portion , we could reject this sentence on grounds of logic . But isnt what i said about noun modifiers correct ?
Thanks

Thank you all for taking time out and replying.

I saw Brian's response and agree with it to an extent. Also the point raised by mundasingh123 is valid. I did my own research at other standardized sources of written English.

I found that "having different interests" is used as an adjective here. It is telling us more about the object i.e. people. "having different interests" is exactly not a present participle but a perfect participle. Perfect participles are not used in the way e.g.

Do you know anyone having lost a cat?

The right usage is :- Do you know anyone who's lost a cat?

Therefore "We enjoy meeting people who have different interests." is the correct usage.

what are your thoughts over this.

Best Regards,
JOHN

Interesting! so when is the usage of perfect participles appropriate ?

The exact statement is - Perfect Participles are not often used in this way. Then it continues with the cat example. Nothing else about Perfect Participle.

This is taken from the book - Practical English Usage by Micheal Swan