CHAPTER 7 Building Better Sentences^155
linking verb. You recall that a linking verb brings together or links the subject to
a descriptive word or a word that stands for the subject. In this sentence, Cari is
being described. What two elements describe her? Attractive and has good sense
are the elements. How can you change the second element, has good sense, to
match the fi rst, attractive?Attractive is an adjective describing Cari. Convert
has good sense into an adjective, a single word, to match attractive. This is
the result:
Correct: Cari is attractive and sensible.Now the sentence is balanced.
Try this sentence:
Incorrect: Chess is mentally challenging and makes me tired.The sentence describes chess. What two phrases follow the linking verb is and
describe chess? They are mentally challenging and makes me tired. The second
phrase contains a verb, makes. The fi rst descriptive phrase does not contain a verb.
Immediately, you know that the description is unbalanced. With what simple change
can you balance this sentence? Take a clue from the -ing ending on challenging.
Place an -ing ending on one word of the second phrase—tiring—and you can elimi-
nate the words makes me. You’ve created a balanced sentence:
Chess is mentally challenging and tiring.You can see that a balanced sentence tends to eliminate unnecessary words, and
that’s a good thing. In the sentence about chess, the correction eliminated the awk-
ward phrase, makes me.
How can you tighten and balance the following sentence?
Incorrect: The deer we saw was tall, alert, and he was obviously hungry.Because it is unbalanced, this sentence actually carries an extra sentence within it.
The deer is described in the sentence. The linking verb was is followed by the adjec-
tives tall and alert but then ends, not with another adjective, with a complete
thought—hewas obviously hungry. How can you correct the sentence?
Correct: The deer we saw was tall, alert, and obviously hungry.