Celebrity English

"According to him, I have a lazy eye, a huge ear and my feet are completely deformed because of dancing." - Penelope Cruz, in People, on her brother Eduardo's list of her shortcomings

Penelope has made an error in parallelism. She has listed three things about herself, but two are noun phrases and one is an independent clause. Items in a list should have the same structure.

This is the list of what Eduardo thinks is wrong with Penelope:

1. a lazy eye [This is a noun phrase: the noun "eye" is modified by the adjective "lazy."]
2. a huge ear [This is a noun phrase: the noun "ear" is modified by the adjective "huge."]
3. my feet are completely deformed because of dancing [This is an independent clause: the subject is "feet," the verb is "are," and the predicate adjective phrase is "completely deformed because of dancing."]

One way to correct the error is to change the independent clause to a noun phrase.

"According to him, I have a lazy eye, a huge ear, and deformed feet as a result of dancing."

This sentence has parallel structure.

Another way to correct the error is to combine the original noun phrases and create a compound object.

"According to him, I have a lazy eye and a huge ear, and my feet are completely deformed because of dancing."

This structure removes the list and combines two independent clauses through the use of a comma and a coordinating conjunction.

Penelope has made a curious statement: she has listed "a huge ear" among her traits. Does this mean she has one huge ear and one smaller ear? Is the Spanish idiom for large ears "a huge ear"? Was she speaking figuratively and describing her "huge ear" for music or something else aural? Did the interviewer hear her incorrectly and she actually said "huge ears"? We do not know the answers to these questions, but we welcome your input in the comments.