RACING FANS

[resilient]

Racing fans often debate which was the finest thoroughbred racehorse, but, when discussing the greatest rivalry,the horses Affirmed and Alydar are consitently at the top of everyon'es list.

a
bwhn discussing which rivalry is the greatest
c.while discussin the greatest rivalry
d.whenver the greatest rivalry is discusses
e.if discussing teh greatest rivalry


[spoiler]qa is d: but I like E
[/spoiler]
D seems very wordy

there are also modifier issues here that I cant pick off. Help!

[hemanth28]

use of "if" is restricted to conditionals not for representing alternate choices.So E is wrong for sure.

www.beatthegmat.com/whether-or-if-t9708.html

[resilient]

but when can only refer to a time. IS this a situation like that?

[lunarpower]

a. when discussing the greatest rivalry
c.while discussin the greatest rivalry
e.if discussing teh greatest rivalry

all three of a, c, e have the same problem.

each of those is a modifying phrase without a subject. as such, each of them is automatically taken to modify the subject immediately following the comma, which, in this sentence, is 'the horses affirmed and alydar'.

since horses can't discuss racing, all of those choices are just wrong.

analogy:
coming home from school, the wind blew me off my bike.
wrong, because the wind wasn't coming home from school.
two ways to fix:
* change 'coming home from school' to 'as i was coming home from school'
or
* change 'the wind blew me off my bike' to 'i was blown off my bike by the wind'

you get the idea.