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I have next statements about people's company's department:

He 's in production. They make the company's products.

She 's in HR. She finds new people to work for the company.

I think that we can say these sentences another way:

He works in production and they make the company's products.

She works in HR and finds new people to work for the company.

But can we say them in one more another way, maybe it's a bit silly question, but I'm completely not sure about it:

He 's in production and they make the company's products.

She 's in HR and finds new people to work for the company.

I ask because I'm not sure that it's correct to join two verbs - 'to be' and 'to do' to one object (he, she)?

And if the last two sentences above are correct do I need 'she' here?

She's in HR and she finds new people to work for the company.

1 Answer 1

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When you join two sentences with and, you should take care of parallelism. In other words, both the clauses should be grammatically same.

Having said this,

He 's in production. They make the company's products - is fine because here, they refers to the production department/unit.

He 's in production and they make the company's products - does not sound okay to me. 'They' could create an ambiguity singular they? as the first pronoun was epicene. Here, He's in production and he makes.... might fit better.

Now the other sentence,

She 's in HR. She finds new people to work for the company - is okay because here it defines what she does in that department.

She's in HR and finds new people to work for the company - does not sound okay to me. It does not fulfill the parallelism.

That's because...

She is in HR. She finds ... so when you join them, the verb parallelism does not happen.

Had it been...

She works in HR (dept). She finds new people for the company

It'd be possible to join She's works in HR and finds...

This means, you got it right...

She's in HR and she finds new people to work for the company -is correct.

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  • Please, could you define what you mean by "parallelism"? I'm finding difficult to follow the argument.
    – Nico
    Commented Apr 2, 2014 at 12:05
  • Is it correct to say: 'He works in the sales department and they have to meet their target each month.' ? Or I should split this sentence if I understand clearly your answer.
    – Selio
    Commented Apr 2, 2014 at 12:16
  • @Selio avoid ambiguity, split the sentence. He works in the sales department that has to meet their monthly target. Here, that will refer to the closest noun i.e. department.
    – Maulik V
    Commented Apr 2, 2014 at 12:26
  • @Nico even better is this - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallelism_%28grammar%29
    – Maulik V
    Commented Apr 2, 2014 at 12:31
  • @MaulikV I couldn't find "verb parallelism" in the wikipedia entry.
    – Nico
    Commented Apr 2, 2014 at 12:40

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