"and" usage

[raj]

I have a question about usage of "and" in parallel sentences.
At what point in the sentence the parallelism should begin when "and" is used. For eg.,
costs associated with upgrading .. and with development... is of the form "costs associated with X and with Y"
can this also be written as:
costs associated with upgrading ... and development... so the form becomes "costs associated with X and Y".

Are both of the above forms correct or one is better than the other.
Is there a criterion to be used for identifying the starting point of the parallel phrase.

[esledge]

Hi Raj,

Both are grammatically correct because they are parallel, but "costs associated with X and Y" is preferable to "costs associated with X and with Y" because it is shorter.

In general, the benefits of parallel construction in sentences are better concision and clarity.

For concision, you want the parallelism to begin as late as possible in the sentence:
"...costs associated with (X and Y)"
has as many words as possible "shared" by the two endings of the sentence, thus requires fewer words overall.

However, if the sentence is more complicated, with the items in the list separated by a lot of text, you might want to repeat the "with" for clarity of meaning. For example:
"...costs associated (with X, which has been a major problem for corporations, and with Y) ..."
makes it easier to understand that X and Y are both things that costs are "associated with."

Let the splits between the answer choices be your guide. If you can't see a reason to repeat the "with" in front of the second item in the list, then pick the choice with the fewer words.

Hope this helps,
Emily Sledge

[yamini]

Hi Emily

You mentioned

"...costs associated (with X, which has been a major problem for corporations, and with Y) ..."

Here which is referring to the costs or X? I think which is refers to the closest noun. isn't it?

what if I write as

Costs associated with X, which is a precious item, is very high. ---- is it correct? . here which is referring to the X.

[raj]

thanks, emily

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi, Yamini - yes, in the examples cited, which should refer to the noun immediately preceding it. The only thing is that, as you wrote your example, the correct second verb should be "are":

"Costs associated with X, which is a precious item, are very high..." Costs is the main subject so the main verb (the second one) should be plural. "Which is" applies only to X, so if X is singular, the verb is singular.