S.C : Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist

[jonathanc]

Didnt find it by research , from GMAT prep :

Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work both rooted in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington, yet in many ways he stood apart from the mainstream jazz repertory.

a) same
b) Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted both
c) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who produced a body of work rooted
d) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was rooted
e) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work rooted both

O.A is D.


I dont understand in sentence d why we dont write :

"Jazz pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk" or " The Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk". because without the "," it seems strange like saying : "Writer and British Shakespeare wrote good books."
Maybe it is because I am not native speaker but to me it sounds like they are different T.M and we are talking about one among the other , and this one was Jazz pianist and composer. if you have some explanation...

Because of this construction I did dismiss c, d ,e letting me only a and b with the strange "both" but as English often present this kind of strange situation i did disregard that fact and finally confirmed b because of the place of the both and the heavy construction in the A.

Thanks for explanations,

John

[NIKESH_PAHUJA]

Totally trumped. Left with no clue on this one..

Can someone please explain why correct answer is D ?
And why B and E are wrong?

Didnt find it by research , from GMAT prep :

Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work both rooted in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington, yet in many ways he stood apart from the mainstream jazz repertory.

a) same
b) Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted both
c) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who produced a body of work rooted
d) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was rooted
e) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work rooted both

O.A is D.

I never really learned English grammar so I usually try to apply other related languages (German or French) rules in this kind of situation (which is not working that great so far but still better than random guess according to the stat). Sorry if my question is stupid for native speakers.

I dont understand in sentence d why we dont write :

"Jazz pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk" or " The Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk". because without the "," it seems strange like saying : "Writer and British Shakespeare wrote good books."
Maybe it is because I am not native speaker but to me it sounds like they are different T.M and we are talking about one among the other , and this one was Jazz pianist and composer. if you have some explanation...

Because of this construction I did dismiss c, d ,e letting me only a and b with the strange "both" but as English often present this kind of strange situation i did disregard that fact and finally confirmed b because of the place of the both and the heavy construction in the A.

Thanks for explanations,

John

[agendra1003]

Stacey or Ron plz explain....

[sunny.jain]

On the first glance, I went with B as well.

But after i saw the answer, i realized:

Correct Idiom is:
Both X and Y
OR
Both in X and in Y.

X and Y are parallel.

Here,
we need:
Both in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith
and
in the stride-piano tradition of Duke Ellington

Or
Both
in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith
and
in same of Duke Ellington.

So "Usage of BOTH" is wrong here, since non-underline part is not parallel.
I mean, we don't need anything self-understandable. One can argue that
[in the stride-piano tradition of] Duke Ellington
is self understood. Yeah it is, but when u read with both, it should be something like
Both X and Y ==> Both X and Both Y.

But D seems to have a major flaw, meaning.
Jazz pianist
and composer T.M
Seems like 2 different person produced a body of work.

Still a Good explanation will really help.

[amoghgarg_dps]

Thanks for such a wonderful explanation for eliminating the options containing the word - BOTH; but I am really confused how to choose between C and D; someone please suggest.

Thanks.

[sunny.jain]

C can not be an answer.

Because of ", who"
Presence of comma make it the who phrase a non-essential modifier, but we need that in the sentence to preserve the meaning.

[RonPurewal]

I dont understand in sentence d why we dont write :

"Jazz pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk" or " The Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk".

this is a special idiom. if you preface someone's name with a noun describing their occupation (or other word describing what that person does), WITHOUT 'A'/'AN', you DO NOT use a comma.

if there's an article, you DO use a comma.

if it's an adjective, you DO use a comma.

example:
Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk ... --> correct
A jazz pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk ... --> correct
Creative and original, Thelonious Monk ... --> correct

because without the "," it seems strange like saying : "Writer and British Shakespeare wrote good books."

well, "writer" is a noun, and "british" is an adjective. that's nonparallel, and so is wrong no matter what country you come from.

--

also"”and most importantly"”don't forget that the gmat does not test punctuation. so, none of this merits your time or consideration in the first place.

[keanuxie]

Ron, in E, that is omitted. Is it why E is wrong?

[RonPurewal]

Ron, in E, that is omitted. Is it why E is wrong?

no, "rooted in..." is a perfectly good modifier, so that part is fine.

the problem is faulty parallelism:
both
in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith
and
Duke Ellington

this is not a problem in the correct answer, since there's no "both" to lock in all of those words. in the correct answer, the parallelism is just "Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington".

[purduesr]

Ron, is it correct to think that we need the word 'both x and y' idiom because if we just use 'and' , which is a coordinating conjunction, we should have another independent clause which is not the case here.

[RonPurewal]

Ron, is it correct to think that we need the word 'both x and y' idiom because if we just use 'and' , which is a coordinating conjunction, we should have another independent clause which is not the case here.

no, that's nowhere close to true, unless i'm misinterpreting you. (it sounds like you're claiming that "x and y", if not preceded by "both", ALWAYS requires "x" and "y" to be clauses.)

think of very simple examples:
e.g.
i ate a sandwich and a salad.
this sentence is clearly ok without "both", thus disproving the theory that this construction requires entire clauses.

[sudaif]

Ron,

The use of "both" is incorrect because we’re talking about one body of work, correct?
If it said "rooted in both" then it would be okay?

Thanks

[bhanupra]

Hi Ron/Stacey,

Why 'c' is wrong in this case.

I would to know the usage of 'who'.

Is it like we can't use 'who' after comma.

Afaik, 'who' is used to refer to persons.

Thanks in advance for your reply.

[akhp77]

Hi Ron/Stacey,

Why 'c' is wrong in this case.

I would to know the usage of 'who'.

Is it like we can't use 'who' after comma.

Afaik, 'who' is used to refer to persons.

Thanks in advance for your reply.

If I take C into question, then it looks like this.

Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who produced a body of work rooted in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington, yet in many ways he stood apart from the mainstream jazz repertory.

or

Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who ..., yet ...

"who ..." -> sub-clause
"yet ..." -> contrast Idea

Here,
Whatever will before "who" should be a Main Clause but I can see only a noun expression "Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk". So, this is not acceptable.

[bhanupra]

Thanks for the quick reply akhp77.

But, before who, we will always have a noun only right ??

Example : Noun, who .....

Or May be I am wrong and didn't get your idea.

I don't know the grammatical reason, but what looks to me is that

"Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who .... yet in many ways he..." doesn't sound good.

Cheers,
Bhanu