Confusion regarding idioms

[Indian Girl]

Can we break up idioms?
For eg. consider the following 2 sentences:
1)Robert writes screenplay not only about bikers but also about alien invasions.
2)Robert writes screenplay not only about bikers but about alien invasions also.
Which sentence is correct/better (or are both equally correct),please explain.

[viksnme]

Can we break up idioms?
For eg. consider the following 2 sentences:
1)Robert writes screenplay not only about bikers but also about alien invasions.
2)Robert writes screenplay not only about bikers but about alien invasions also.
Which sentence is correct/better (or are both equally correct),please explain.

Hi, Indian Girl,

In GMATland, we need to follow GMAT rules. In this particular case, the correct Idiom is - Not only X, but also Y. GMAT will consider any deviation from this as incorrect unless you do not find this in one of the 5 choices.

Sentence 1 is correct since it uses the correct idiom. In this sentence, 'about bikers' is X and 'about alien invasions' is Y.

Hope this clarifies.

[esledge]

viksnme is correct: the GMAT would stick with the standard "not only X but also Y." By the way, "not only X but Y" has been used correctly (on a GMAT Prep question), but in that case, parallelism between X and Y was the trump card.

The trouble with "not only X but Y also" is not simply that the idiom words are separated, but that the parallelism is not as good.