A Parenthetical Puzzle

A Parenthetical Puzzle A Parenthetical Puzzle A Parenthetical Puzzle By Mark Nichol Writers sometimes trip themselves up when they try to introduce a parenthetical element in a sentence without ensuring that the main clause of the sentence remains grammatically coherent. Here’s a troublesome example of this type of error, with a discussion of possible revisions. In the sentence â€Å"Smith was one of, if not the first, female members of the organization,† the writer is attempting to communicate two related ideas too early in the syntactical structure: Smith was one of the first female members of the organization, and she may have been the first female member of the organization. The preceding sentence is a possible revision, but the two thoughts can be expressed more concisely. To untangle the original sentence, revise it so that if the parenthetical element what is positioned between the commas (or a pair of parentheses or dashes) is deleted, what remains stands as a coherent sentence. The sentence without the parenthesis, â€Å"Smith was one of female members of the organization,† is not grammatically sound, because â€Å"the first† is expected to bear the responsibility of serving both points of the sentence. With the parenthesis, â€Å"female members† is expected to apply both to â€Å"one of† and â€Å"the first,† but the phrases are not parallel in structure. How about aligning the two points by using â€Å"the first† in each phrase? â€Å"Smith was one of the first, if not the first, female members of the organization† is closer to correct, but the parenthetical phrase still doesn’t agree with â€Å"female members.† (I’ve also seen constructions like â€Å"Smith was one of the, if not the, first female members of the organization.† The sentence is valid if the parenthesis is deleted, but the full sentence, again, is not parallel in structure.) Let’s try moving the phrase â€Å"female members† before the parenthesis: â€Å"Smith was one of the first female members, if not the first, of the organization.† That’s better, but it still reads awkwardly. How about moving â€Å"of the organization† before the parenthetical, too? (â€Å"Smith was one of the first female members of the organization, if not the first.†) The parenthetical is no longer a parenthetical it’s just a truncated phrase tacked onto the end of the main clause that implies the wording â€Å"if not the first female member of the organization† but the grammatical architecture is now sound. Sometimes, as in this case, a sentence is flawed in form it just won’t support a parenthetical element and must be restructured. This post analyzes three similarly impaired sentences. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:25 Subordinating ConjunctionsTop 11 Writing Apps for iOS (iPhone and iPad)Forming the Comparative of One-syllable Adjectives

Athens Vs. sparta essays

Athens Vs. sparta essays There were two major polises in Ancient Greece. These polises were very different form each other and are thought to be the two most different polises in Greece. Both of these polises had advantages and disadvantages for there citizens. Both polises had different forms of government, Athens was democratic and Sparta was totalitarian. Both of the city states had different cultures, lifestyles, and laws. Athens has some good advantages that you wont find in Sparta. First they are a democratic society where the people can propose laws, debate openly on political issues and are allowed to criticize elected officials. This is an important fact to consider because if someone was open minded, opinionated, and liked to be heard then they would fit in great. Next Athens was very prosperous and even though they were not very focused on military power they still was able to deal with any crisis or types of chaos they encountered. This showed that the Athenian people were able to maintain control and order in there city without revoking freedom and independence. Third lastly they believed in the balance between a sound mind and a sound body which means that it was not all about being strong and a powerful fighter but intelligence was also valued. Lastly they educated there people which gave them the opportunity to learn about arts and literature. Athens also had some disadvantages because some of there rules and polisies were not to the advantages of all the people. To begin only male citizens at least 30 years old were allowed to vote. People were not considered a citizen unless they were upper class so the slaves, servants and merchants had no say. Lastly only the upper class was allowed to go to school and the poor and lower classed were not educated. On the other hand there is Sparta which has advantages different to Athens. Sparta always looked out for the common good of its people and there num ...

Myself As the King Consumer Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Myself As the King Consumer - Essay Example Therefore, I believe that I cannot make a mistake when making a purchase because it comes highly recommended by trustworthy people. Then, of course, there are the trending Tweets when it comes to the latest trends in gadgets, fashion, accessories, music, etc. There is a whole multimedia campaign going on here just because Taylor Swift wants me to go back to 1989. the question is, do I spend my hard earned money just on the say-so of the brand marketers? As a consumer, it becomes increasingly difficult for me to purchase items because of all the outside factors that involve themselves in my purchasing decision. However, I find that once I break free from the influence of the brand marketers and my family members, I am even more lost than ever before I purchase something. Why is that? There are too many brands out there that all tout themselves to be better than the other for me to make a personal judgment about the item I wish to purchase. This is when my purchases begin to enter the â€Å"Hail Mary† phase. I make a decision, don't look back, or allow the salesperson to sales talk me into looking at another item before I head to the cashier. I made my decision, I can only hope it was the right one. That is what purchasing decisions have come to these days. Too much influence from other sources has spoiled the shopping experience for me. I can't even buy a tube of toothpaste these days without comparing prices, checking coupons, and googling product reviews, right there in the middle of the supermarket! That just goes to show that there is no such thing as a King Consumer anymore. These days, people know what they want, the problem, is which brand to choose. This is when the practical side of me comes into play. I believe that if I buy something too cheap, it'll break within the day. If it is too expensive, I get bells and whistles that I don't really need. So I try to  shoot for the middle brand.

Google is a Successful Organization Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Google is a Successful Organization - Essay Example From this paper it is clear that  Google is an international worldwide organization that is ranked world’s third biggest and valuable organization. The extraordinary work force with passionate and commitment to work environment, sound management practices and peoples analytics approach are some other determinants of success for Google. Google has incorporated the concept of continuous innovation and considering new talent screening the marketplace to the top. Google has taken a strategic shift to strengthen its workplace by great people management. Innovation is a product of new retainers and new people and Google accepts this fact for success. The managers are enabled to produce advanced business outcomes only when they are managing people decisions, accurately.  This study outlines that  people analytics approach is applied here. Pursuing long term relationships with the personnel, reward and recognitions, growth and opportunity, securities are yet other determinants o f success. The analytical based models for producing great results, enhancing workforce productivity and growing dramatically is given out by Google that has gained enough recognition and acceptance by the executives of other firms.   Google largely depends on data and analytics for driving decisions. Technology is a great breakthrough and coping up with the ultra high tech standards for maintaining and provoking it also call for Google’s success.

Health & Safety Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Health & Safety Management - Essay Example Examples of chemical hazards include benzene, hydrogen sulphide, etc. Ergonomic hazards arise when there is a mismatch between the task being performed and the human abilities. Examples of ergonomic hazards include lifting or pushing heavy objects. Physical hazards are forms of energy that can adversely affect the health and safety of an employee by their interaction with the human body. Examples of physical hazards include noise, radiation, etc. Psychosocial hazards arise by interaction of employees with peers or other people. Examples of psychosocial hazards include stress. Occupational health hazards, such as the ones described above have chronic effects and symptoms often take long time to develop or become apparent. Examples of adverse health effects arising from such hazards include asbestosis; a form or lung cancer that develops from inhalation of asbestos fibres, noise induced hearing loss; a permanent form of loss in hearing caused by prolonged exposure to noise, repetitive strain injuries; a form of musculoskeletal disorders caused by repetition of strenuous work, stress; caused by social interaction, or illness caused by E. coli infection. Some health effects, such as asbestosis or noise induced hearing loss take long time to become apparent and are often late for remedial action. Other risks exist in the working environments that have acute effects on the health and safety of employees. These hazards arise from unsafe conditions that exist in the working environment. Examples of such hazards include trips and falls, accidents, etc. Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has reported cases of adverse health effects from virtually every hazard that exists in the working environment. These hazards not only adversely affect the health and safety of employees, but also cause lost time to employers and costs in terms of compensation or treatment. Many of these hazards have caused fatalities and permanent disabilities. Such losses affect the

The Anatomy of Evil Essay Example for Free

The Anatomy of Evil Essay In his Vessels of Evil, Laurence Thomas contends that the insane can do no evil (p. 98). Thomass view about the relationship between evil and insanity is common among laypeople, psychiatrists and philosophers. In this section I consider whether the insane are precluded from evildoing. Part of the problem in assessing the claim that the insane can do no evil, is that it is not always clear to whom we are referring by the term ‘insane’. According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, the insane are people who are in a state of mind that precludes normal perception, behavior, and ordinary social interaction; they are mad, psychotic or mentally ill. However, by ‘insane’ Thomas and others who argue that the insane can do no evil cannot mean anyone with a mental illness (i. e. anyone with a disorder listed in the DSM-IV), for there is no reason to hold that e. g. individuals suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive disorder or from spider phobias cannot do evil. More than likely those who argue that the insane can do no evil mean something closer to the legal notion of insanity according to which the insane are those who, â€Å"at the time of act[ing], . [are] laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act [they are] doing; or if [they do] know it, [they do] not know [they are] doing what [is] wrong† (Clark and Fin, p. 210). This is the content of the famous McNaughtan Rules which have come to dominate the common law on the defense of insanity. However, one problem with the legal notion of insanity is that it is not always clear who is able to ascertain the nature and quality of their actions or to tell that what they are doing is wrong. Also, it isnt clear that the legally insane will always be precluded from evildoing. In what follows I consider the relationship between various mental illnesses, legal insanity and our ability to do evil. I argue that the Desire Account of Evil provides a natural demarcation between those mental illnesses that preclude us from evildoing and those that do not. I contend that the legal notion of insanity is a less accurate guide. People suffering from delusions or psychoses are unable to see the world correctly or to draw reasonable inferences from their perceptions (APA, pp. 273-281). They are like the citizen of Usville who cannot be expected to believe anything other than that the Notlikeuses are hostile vampires from another planet. Like the citizen of Usville, delusional or psychotic schizophrenics do not have e-desire sets because they have good reasons for their false beliefs about the worthiness of the goals for which they desire harm or about the significance of the harm they desire. Thus, people who cause others significant harm because of delusions or psychosis resulting from their mental illnesses do not do evil for two reasons: they do not do evil because their actions do not follow from e-desire sets and they do not do evil because they are not moral agents. Besides schizophrenia, other disorders such as Schizoaffective Disorder, Delusional Disorder, Brief Psychotic Disorder, Dementia, Manic depression, etc. can involve psychotic or delusional episodes where a patient may perform actions causing great harm to others because their mental illness causes them to believe that the goal for which they cause the harm is justified or that the harm they cause is insignificant (APA, pp. 273-315). In all of these cases no evil has been performed according to my account of evil. Also, people committing crimes under delusions or psychoses are often deemed legally insane by jurists and judges, for if we commit a crime because of delusions or psychoses we do not know the nature or quality of our actions. For instance, in 1843, Richard Dadd was deemed legally insane and thus acquitted of the brutal murder of his father because he had the delusional belief that his father was the devil. In fact, almost all cases of legal insanity involve mental illnesses that include delusions or psychosis (Cleckley, pp. 514-527). People with dissociative identity disorder have two or more distinct identities or personality states. Usually there is a primary identity which uses the name of the individual who hosts the identities. This identity is typically passive, dependent, guilty and depressed. Alternate identities, on the other hand, typically have personalities that contrast with the primary identity, e. g. they are hostile, controlling, aggressive, and lack remorse. Individuals with dissociative Identity Disorder experience alternate identities taking control in sequence, often denying knowledge of their actions to the other identities including the primary identity (APA, p. 84). It is reasonable for the courts to excuse individuals with dissociative identity disorder for their wrongdoing on the basis of insanity because the primary identities in these cases are often not aware of the nature or quality of the wrongful acts caused by their more aggressive identities, and the court cannot split the guilty identities from the innocent ones for the purpose of punishment. I also think that those who intentionally cause or witness someone elses significant harm from an e-desire set as an alternate identity have not committed evil. For in these cases the primary identity does not intentionally cause or witness someone elses significant or serious harm from an e-desire set, the alternate identity does. Thus, it is the alternate identity who acts evilly and not the primary identity. We must judge each identity and her actions independently. Perhaps the most famous and controversial cluster of mental disorders that can lead to significant harm are the antisocial personalities disorders. According to the DSMIV persons diagnosed with antisocial personalities must be at least 18 years old; display a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others since age 15; have displayed evidence of conduct disorder since before age 15; and have at least three of the following seven traits: (1) failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest, (2) deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, uses of aliases or conning others for personal profit or pleasure, (3) impulsivity or failure to plan ahead, (4) irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults, (5) reckless disregard for the safety of self or others, (6) consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations, and (7) lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another (Ibid, pp. 646-650). Cleckley argues that psychopaths are not responsible for their actions because they often act against their own self-interest and are therefore irrationa1. For instance, psychopaths often appear to be hopelessly impulsive, and committing crimes they are sure to be incarcerated for just hours after they are released from wards they claim to detest. However, others, such as Vinit Haksar, argue that we can only judge the psychopaths seemingly irrational impulsivity as counter to his self-interest if we assume he has values roughly the same as ours. But, Haksar claims, we should not make this assumption since psychopaths may simply value committing spontaneous antisocial acts very highly, and value things that the rest of us value highly (e. g. relationships, careers, freedom) relatively low or only as a means to carry out antisocial activities. Generally, psychopaths are thought to be criminally responsible for their actions and are tried for their crimes since they do not suffer from delusions or psychoses of any kind and they reason well enough. When psychopaths commit crimes they know they are breaking societal norms and thus they seem to pass the McNaughtan test for legal sanity. However, some, such as Antony Duff, have argued that psychopaths are so emotionally and morally deficient that they cannot understand the emotional and moral significance of matters such as death, love, friendship and career for others, and so, they cannot understand how they provide reasons for acting and for judgment (Duff, p. 193). Thus, psychopaths do not truly understand the nature and quality of their actions since they lack the basic values and emotional capacity required for understanding morality. Duff concludes that psychopaths should be considered legally insane and not criminally responsible. Besides discussing the relationship between various mental illnesses and evildoing, I have also argued that we cannot equate those whose mental illnesses preclude them from evildoing with the legally insane. One reason we cannot equate these two groups is that it is sufficient for legal insanity that we are unable to know whether our actions are wrong, while this condition is irrelevant to whether our act is evil Another reason we may not be able to equate those whose mental illnesses preclude them from evildoing with the legally insane is that we may be required to have a greater understanding of the nature of our actions to be criminally responsible than we do to be evil That is, if Duff is right that psychopaths are so emotionally deficient that they cannot sufficiently understand the nature and quality of their actions for legal sanity, then we need a better understanding of the nature and quality of our actions to be criminally responsible than we do to be capable of evil I do not argue one way or the other about whether Duff is correct in his insistence that legal sanity requires an emotional understanding of the nature of our actions. Instead, I argue that, regardless of the condi tions required for legal sanity, for evil we must only have the perceptual, cognitive and deliberative capacities required for moral agency and for recognizing that we intentionally cause or witness someone elses significant or serious harm.

Porters Five Forces Analysed The External Environment Industry Marketing Essay

Porters Five Forces Analysed The External Environment Industry Marketing Essay Among the different choices, Apple has chosen the differentiation focus strategy in the broad industry. The invention and development of products by Apple are its highly unique attributes, with devices such as the iPhone, iPod and iPad where the use touch screen and other interfaces to operate the products. Apple spends billions of dollars every year on RD (Research and Development) to develop and promote its products in order to achieve superior quality over competitors products. Apple slogan is Think Different, which drives them to innovate and provide high quality regarding their products. Apples markets are global, but they are focusing on active markets such as America, the EU and some Asian countries. However, Apple focuses on a market segment where customers clearly feel that Apple provides value for its customers. In addition, Apple had a positive growth rate during the economic crisis of 2007-2009 (Business week, 2010). Apples premium price strategy and its success have beco me a significant barrier to competitors such as Nokia, Motorola, HTC and the E-book by Sony. Porters Five Forces Analysis Porters Five Forces analysed the external environment of the industry in order to give a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses within the organisation. These analyses give the company the ability to identify the opportunities and threats from external factors (Harrison, 2003). These forces include: Threat of new entrants For each of its product lines, Apple, like any other company, faces rigorous competition. This high-tech industry requires continual research and development (RD). This sector is difficult for new companies to enter because new entrants must spend a large amount of capital on RD and on the advertising and promotion of their brand. There are some dominant producers in this sector such as Apple, Microsoft, Dell and Sony, who share the majority of the market. Apple should be aware of new entrants because they may come up with surprisingly better technology or a better product. However, these new entrants are less of a threat because it is difficult to enter and penetrate the market in a limited time (Harrison, 2003). Power of the supplier Porters second force states that the bargaining power of suppliers imposes a threat to any company. It also includes, the availability of substitute suppliers which is an important factor in determining the power of the supplier. Suppliers are known as third parties in this industry, and they are classified in two groups. The first group makes the major parts for the products. This group is not strong because of the availability and easy of replacing the items they make, such as batteries, wire connections, screens and other internal components. In contrast, the second group provides accurate parts and important programmes such as flash-memory and DRAM. This group is strong because of their specialized and advanced products, as well as the lack of alternative products (Nistor, 2010). There are some suppliers who dominate the market; for example, Intel, Microsoft and Sony. So, it is important for Apple to have a good relationship with its suppliers. Power of the buyer The buyers bargaining power is very high in the industry because competitors offer a wide range of similar products with competitive prices. The Apple Corporation faces a moderate threat from buyers because they have a lot of products that consumers can choose from. In addition, the threat of buyers comes from their demand for new features in Apple products. However, there are a large number of companies that offer similar products and there is quite a big differentiation in price and performance. Therefore, loyalty is often shown towards a specific brand because there are not many differences in the quality and price between brands (Nistor, 2010). Buyers are often more sensitive to brand rather than price. Apples customers are individuals, education departments, enterprises, governments and creative customers. So, the variety of consumers and their needs has a direct impact on Apples future strategies. Threat of substitutes The technological environment is changing fast every day. There are not many substitutes in this industry because of the high-tech features. However, alternatives are always available from competitors. If some other company such as BlackBerry, Google, Samsung or Microsoft come up with new technology or the same kind of phone at a lower price or with more features at the same price, then this is a problem for Apple (O Grady, 2009). Customers usually tend to look to the latest technology instead of traditional methods. Apple has the ability and efficiently to design and develop its own hardware and application software to become unique and distinct from its competitors. Competitive rivalry The competition in this industry is very high, almost in all areas of business, because of the continuing requirement to provide new products all the time. Competitive prices, new products, design innovations and technology are the main factors that Apple has to compete with other international companies on, such as IBM, HP, Acer and Dell. The consumers choices also differ; some prefer to save some cash rather purchase high performance specification technology and some prefer the newest technology. So, the result is that companies implement different strategies; for example, low-cost and best-cost strategies. Some manufacturers offer products at the lowest price in an attempt to cut their costs by ignoring everything except some basic features. Some other companies in the middle price range, such as Dell and HP, focus on attracting customers by offering varying prices. And the top of the range companies, like Apple, gain customers through their high quality products, features and inn ovative design, which makes their products popular all over the world (O Grady, 2009). APPENDICES: Porters Generic Strategy model: Porters Five Forces model: