PARALLELISMPARALLELISMPARALLELISM

Here’s a handy definition:

Parallelism means that two or more words, phrases, or clauses have the same grammatical form and an identical grammatical relationship to the same thing.

Was that clear?

Or are you kind of confused?

Let’s just look at some examples:

In its energy, its lyrics, its advocacy of frustrated joys, rock is one long symphony of protest.

Time Magazine

(Three parallel objects of the preposition “in”)

The Department of Justice began a vigorous campaign to break up the corporate empires, to restore the free and open market, and to plant the feet of industry firmly on the road to competition.

--Thurman Arnold

(Three parallel infinitive phrases, all modifying “campaign.”)

Wowza—look at this!

Here is where the hot wind blows and the old ways do not seem relevant, where the divorce rate is double the national average and where one person in every thirty-eight lives in a trailer. Joan Didion

(The three where-clauses are parallel subjects of “is”; the first of these constructions actually consists of two clauses in parallel.)

One more example:

To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind… Edmund Burke

What is parallel in this sentence?

Let’s pause for a grammar rule:

Parallel constructions must be identical in their grammatical form.

Thus, to use Burke’s example: His four subjects are expressed as infinitive phrases. If one of them was in another form: “To complain of the age we live in, murmuring (versus: to murmur) at the present possessors of power…” = grammar crime!!!

We call this mistake a:

SHIFTED CONSTRUCTION

When part of a parallel sentence is in a different form. AVOID THIS!!!

Why do writers like parallelism?

• It is impressive and pleasing to hear—elaborate yet rhythmic and ordered, following a master plan with a place for everything and everything placed.

• Easier for readers/listeners to follow.

• Logical form of sentence makes people think the ideas are also logical.

Want some more?!!!

The men dozed, waked, sighed, groaned.

--Joseph Conrad

What is parallel?

And here?

It was certainly true that Starr had played with his children, that the two families had seen a good deal of each other, and that he had been alone with Starr on many occasions.

Morris Markey

Before me lies a bundles of these sermons, rescued from six-score years of dust, scrawled on their title pages with names of owners dead long ago, worm-eaten, dingy, stained with the damps of time, and uttering in quaint old letter-press the emotions of a buried and forgotten past.

Last One

If the movies had never gone beyond photographing plays on stage, if they had not created their own rhythm of presentation through cutting and camera movements, they would have remained a small and shabby thing.

Gilbert Seldes

Parallelism is fun! And you if you learn it you will NOT become a