ESL Term:

Faulty Parallelism

ESL/EFL Glossary: A Guide to applied linguistics terminology.

 

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faulty parallelism: A common error when listing things or actions. Everything in a list should take the same form. For example:

    I am learning swimming and how to play the piano.            X

In the above sentence, swimming and how to play the piano are different forms.This should be:

     I am learning how to swim and play the piano..                   O

More examples:

 I like horror movies, action movies, and movies about war. X

 I like horror movies, action movies, and war movies.            O

 

 He has a sense of humor, good looks and is intelligent.      X

 He has a sense of humor, good looks, and intelligence.      O

 

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