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This is some I have never heard of.

To illustrate the concept, I use the sentence:

Maelle and Gerard are competent, loving parents, both are engineers.

I know the sentence sounds weird. In the grammar book, one of the choice is :

Maelle and Gerard are both loving and competent parents and engineers.

At first I thought this has to be a wrong revision because now the two adjective modify both nouns.

Both the grammar book says that it's wrong because of a different word order that conveys a different meaning. I thought what?

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  • You've dropped parents from your sentence.
    – Jim
    Feb 8, 2015 at 2:33
  • You're both right. The different word order is exactly what causes the two adjectives to modify both nouns, which is indeed a different meaning. Feb 8, 2015 at 2:42
  • Janus, you missed out the parent. It was typo. I don't think it's too big of a issue. Feb 8, 2015 at 2:43
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    (Post-edit:) You're right. It's different because both adjectives now describe both parents and engineers, and ‘loving engineers’ is not exactly a common collocation. This change in meaning is of cause effected by the change in sentence structure (i.e., word order). Also, in this version, both is ambiguous. In the original, it is not. Feb 8, 2015 at 2:43
  • The problem is that English provides few clues as to whether an adjective ahead of a list of nouns applies to all nouns in the list or only the first. If the sentence were "Maelle and Gerard are both Democrats, loving and competent parents, and engineers," then it would be understood that "loving and competent" applies to "parents". But when the adjective is ahead of the first noun then it can be ambiguous. In some situations (depending on the specific adjectives and nouns) the ambiguity is resolvable, but in others the problem should simply be avoided by changing the sentence structure.
    – Hot Licks
    Feb 8, 2015 at 3:04

3 Answers 3

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I suggest:

Maelle and Gerard are [both*] engineers and competent, loving parents.

*Optional.

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The only problem with the original sentence is that you have two independent clauses separated by a weak comma. Change the last comma into a semicolon. 'Maelle and Gerard are competent, loving parents; both are engineers.'

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There is a change in meaning, potentially.

The first sentence says that Maelle and Gerard are competent, loving parents and that they are also both engineers.

The second sentence could mean that, but it could instead mean that they are both not just competent, loving parents but also competent, loving engineers.

The changing of the word order creates a new meaning for the second sentence that is, at best, ambiguous.

Example:

If you were to choose between a belt and shoes that are brown or a belt and shoes that are black and ended up choosing the brown, you could, and likely would, say, "I want the brown belt and shoes." That's because the adjective "brown" can apply to all items in the list, not just the noun that immediately follows. You are saying "brown" in that sentence to modify not just "belt" but also "shoes."

This is what is happening with changing the word order in your illustration sentence. Again, it could be interpreted to mean what the first sentence says, but not necessarily. A door has been opened to another meaning that could lead someone to misconstrue it, or at least flippantly say, "Oooh, loving engineers?! I don't know what that means, but I definitely want to get invited to their next office Christmas party!"

Another change in meaning that I just noticed has to do with the word "both."

In the first sentence, it's saying that Maelle and Gerard both are engineers, "both" referring to "Maelle" and "Gerard." However, in the second sentence it's saying that Maelle and Gerard are both parents and engineers," "both" referring to "parents" and engineers," not "Maelle" and Gerard."

It doesn't make any material difference to the meaning of sentence as a whole, because whether "both" is before "are" or after "are," or even if it's omitted entirely, we can still tell that both of them are both things by "parents" and "engineers" being plural nouns, but nonetheless, the fact that the nouns that "both" modifies changes between the two sentences is a technical change in meaning.

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