“Listen, he’s a great man, he’s a great friend, he’s a great actor and so much fun." - Jennifer Aniston, describing Vince Vaughn
Jennifer has made an error in parallelism. The quote contains a list of four of Vince's qualities, but three are independent clauses and one is an adjective phrase. Listed items in a sentence should conform to a similar grammatical structure.
These are the four elements in Jennifer's list:
- he’s a great man [This is an independent clause.]
- he’s a great friend [This is an independent clause.]
- he’s a great actor [This is an independent clause.]
- so much fun [This is an adjective phrase.]
Jennifer has employed a rhetorical device known as "anaphora," which is the repetition of a word or set of words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. One way to adapt the syntax of the sentence so that it is parallel in structure is to change the adjective phrase to an independent clause that begins with "he's a great."
This is what Jennifer might have said had she chosen to use parallel structure and further employ anaphora:
“Listen, he’s a great man, he’s a great friend, he’s a great actor, and he's a great deal of fun."
Note: While many grammarians believe that independent clauses should never be separated with only a comma (which would result in what they would deem to be a type of run-on sentence known as a "comma splice"), others feel that it is acceptable when the independent clauses are very short and in a series.
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