Find the part of the given sentence that has an error in it. If there is no error, choose ‘No error’. Slashing expenditure to compress the deficit (1)/ and please the rating agencies will do (2)/more harm than good for economic revival (3)/. No error (4)
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Identifying the Error in the Sentence
The question asks us to find the part of the given sentence that contains a grammatical error. Let's examine each part of the sentence:
The sentence is: Slashing expenditure to compress the deficit (1)/ and please the rating agencies will do (2)/more harm than good for economic revival (3)/. No error (4)
Analyzing Part (1): "Slashing expenditure to compress the deficit"
This part introduces the subject of the sentence, which is the action "Slashing expenditure". This is a gerund phrase acting as a noun. The phrase "to compress the deficit" is an infinitive phrase indicating the purpose of slashing expenditure. This part is grammatically correct.
Analyzing Part (2): "and please the rating agencies will do"
This part connects to the subject action introduced in part (1) and introduces the main verb "will do". The subject of the verb "will do" is the action(s) described earlier. If there are multiple actions acting as the subject or coordinated with the subject, they must maintain parallelism.
In this sentence, "Slashing expenditure" is a gerund phrase acting as the subject. The word "please" appears to be intended as another action coordinated with "Slashing expenditure". However, "please" is in the base form of the verb, not a gerund (which would be "pleasing"). For correct parallelism, if "Slashing expenditure" is the subject, any coordinated action should also be a gerund.
Consider these correct parallel structures:
- Gerund + Gerund: Slashing expenditure and pleasing the rating agencies will do...
- Infinitive + Infinitive: To slash expenditure and to please the rating agencies will do... (Less likely interpretation given the start of the sentence, but grammatically possible)
The current structure uses a gerund ("Slashing expenditure") and then the base form ("please") in coordination, which violates the rule of parallelism. The word "please" should be "pleasing" to match the gerund form of the subject.
Therefore, there is an error in part (2) of the sentence.
Analyzing Part (3): "more harm than good for economic revival"
This part describes the consequence of the action(s) in parts (1) and (2). The phrase "more harm than good" is a standard comparative construction. "for economic revival" indicates the context or area affected. This part is grammatically correct.
Conclusion
Based on the analysis, the error lies in part (2) due to a lack of parallelism between the gerund subject "Slashing expenditure" and the coordinated action "please". The sentence should ideally read: "Slashing expenditure to compress the deficit and pleasing the rating agencies will do more harm than good for economic revival."
The part of the sentence with the error is (2).
Important Questions from Error Spotting
The following question has a sentence with three underlined parts labelled (a), (b) and (c). Read each sentence to find out whether there is any error in any underlined part and indicate your response against the corresponding letter i.e., (a) or (b) or (c). If you find no error, your response should be indicated as (d).
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No one knows (a) why he did it, (b) or who was behind his doing it.(c) No error. (d)
