Sentence Correction

The author Herman Melville and the poet Walt Whitman are icons of American literature, greatly beloved by
generations past and present.
"¢ The author Herman Melville and the poet Walt Whitman are icons
"¢ Herman Melville the author and Walt Whitman the poet are icons
"¢ The author named Herman Melville and the poet named Walt Whitman are great icons
"¢ The author, Herman Melville, and the poet, Walt Whitman, are icons
"¢ Herman Melville, the author, and Walt Whitman, the poet, had been icons




The OA is A itself

Experts please help give some good explanations...

B - The author and the poet seems to be subject of the sentence - wrong, the emphasis should be on the people
C - Too wordy and awkward
D - Same problem as B. The author and the poet are icons ... - wrong
E - Change in tense

IMO A.

P.S. Underline the part under study.

Underlining the question first!

The author Herman Melville and the poet Walt Whitman are icons of American literature, greatly beloved by generations past and present.

"¢ The author Herman Melville and the poet Walt Whitman are icons
"¢ Herman Melville the author and Walt Whitman the poet are icons - Wrong Construction
"¢ The author named Herman Melville and the poet named Walt Whitman are great icons
"¢ The author, Herman Melville, and the poet, Walt Whitman, are icons - Confusing and complex
"¢ Herman Melville, the author, and Walt Whitman, the poet, had been icons

A is left out!!

I am sorry guyzzz but I am not at all convinced for the above reasons given...

I feel there is something else that is tested...

Could any of the experts please intervene and help...

One of the best problems and one of the best explanations as well (Ron's):

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/pos ... tml#p35618

I am sure it will answer all our doubts.

A--works fine; the participial phrase at the end "greatly beloved..." correctly modifies the subject (Herman Melville and Walt Whitman).
B--moving the descriptions of the two names does not make sense
C--adding "named" is unnecessary
D--their names are crucial to the meaning of the sentence, so we don't want to set them off with commas
E--no need for past perfect; they are still icons

Finally got an explanation from MGMAT. I was searching for this explanation since a long time.

The explanation is as follow:

Whenever you have a scenario when you are describing a person from his or her occupation, you use specific or no articles for doing it.

Case (i): When you use no articles or when you use 'the' as the article, the COMMA is not used to define the main noun or the name.

Case (ii): When you use articles such as 'a' or 'an' then you certainly do use the COMMA.


From the above explanation when you solve the above sentence, then you find that the official answer comes down to A and B.

Then there is another funda or explanation:

The occupation defining a person or the adjective modifier should always precede the noun or the main noun.

ie the author Herman Ville is the correct usage and not Herman Ville the author

Hence the answer comes out to be A. and B gets canceled out....


Hope this post actually helped...

Thanks amit and patanjali.purpose