The media and Democratic politicians have ginned up this climate of hate, and must be made to take responsibility for the resulting violence.
What's the problem? Why is it a problem? How do you fix it?
Wednesday, May 03, 2023
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What you're looking at is a simple sentence with a compound subject and a compound predicate. Like this one:
ReplyDeleteGrant and Lisa sat down and farted.
With a compound predicate, you've got two verbs in the predicate. In this case, two subjects are performing two actions. In such a sentence, you don't separate the verbs with a comma: reserve your commas for independent clauses. So this would be wrong:
Grant and Lisa sat down, and farted.
Starting to see the problem?
So for the sentence I quoted (which was written by Glenn Reynolds, who normally writes pretty well), the solution is just to eliminate the comma.
The media and Democratic politicians have ginned up this climate of hate and must be made to take responsibility for the resulting violence.
Compound subject: the media and Dem politicians
Compound predicate: have ginned up... and must
So remember that as a pro tip when dealing with compound predicates: don't separate the verbs with a comma.
Jack saw the old grandmother and wolf-whistled.
Myrtle's uncle screams and shits a lot.
We'll drive up gas prices and make grocery shopping a living hell.
Thanks for the explanation. My brain was too tired to even try yesterday.
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