Sentences and Socks: Mixing and Matching

In the past few years, I have noticed a phenomenon sweeping the pre-teen female population: mismatched socks. I must admit that I am a bit disappointed to have missed out on this fad—I love fun socks! Yet there is still something to be said for order in the chaos. While mismatched socks are fun for a while, there is still something satisfying to me about matching up my socks together when they come out of the laundry.

I feel the same way about parts of sentences. Allow me to explain.

Whether we realize it or not, our speaking and our writing follow certain patterns. For example, in the English language, simple sentences usually have a subject (who or what the sentence is about), a verb (action word), and then an object (the word or phrase receiving the action). Thus we end up with a sentence like this: He threw the ball. Sentences such as Threw he the ball do not sound right, nor does The ball threw he. These sentence patterns may be used in other languages, but they do not exist in English.

There are some sequences of matching patterns that are tricky to differentiate. While there are multiple ways that sentences can be mismatched, this post will cover one of the most commonly mismatched combinations of two different sentence patterns.

Mixed Construction

If someone sneezes, many people respond with “bless you” or “gesundheit.” When someone sneezes, people are expected to respond; it is, to some extent, the expected pattern of behavior. Sentences work in a similar way. When you have certain beginning of a sentence, a specific and aligning ending is expected.

Example of mixed sentence construction: By providing students with more engaging curriculum will motivate students to participate in class.

The problem here is that the underlined phrase is being pulled in two different directions because there are two parts of two patterns, and they do not work together.

Pattern 1:

Usually, sentences that begin with the word by have a certain pattern, like this: By running fast, I won the race.

Notice the pattern. First you have a descriptive phrase, explaining how something happened (by running fast), and next you have the complete sentence that this phrase is modifying or describing. In the example above, the complete sentence after the descriptive phase is a simple one, made up of a subject (I), verb (won), and object (the race). Another grammar term to note is predicate, which means the words or phrases that come after the subject to convey information about that subject.

So any time a sentence starts with by, this is the pattern to follow:

               [Descriptive phrase + Comma] + [Subject + Predicate]

All these sentences are examples of a correct way to use this by phrase:

               By keeping low to the ground, he was able to escape the fire.

               By slowing her pace, she was able to run farther.

               By being a good student, he was accepted into the University of Minnesota.

Here is another way to look at this type of sentence:

[By] + [-ing word + phrase] + [comma] + [independent clause (complete sentence)]

Example: By completing the project, the researchers discovered how to best address the problem.

View the pattern and the sentence in this table to see how they align:

[By]	[-ing word + the rest of the connected phrase]	[comma]	[independent clause (complete sentence)]
Completing the project	allowed the researchers to discover how to best address the problem.	,	the researchers discovered how to best address the problem.

Let’s take another look at the original mixed construction sentence:

By providing students with more engaging curriculum will motivate students to participate in class.

Now, you can see that the sentence does not follow this pattern. The –ing word and the rest of the phrase should work with only by in this sentence. Instead, that phrase is trying to function in another way, and the sentence starts to go into another pattern.

Pattern 2:

This next pattern begins with –ing words. Instead of using those –ing words to describe the subject, this pattern actually uses those –ing  words as the subject of the sentence. Here’s an example: Knowing how to cook is important for everyone.

What is important for everyone? Knowing how to cook. This is your subject. See how this phrase can work as a subject, and the rest of the sentence works as the predicate?  Notice how the verb (is) comes directly after the full subject, so this is the pattern that this kind of sentence follows:    

               [-ing word (This is the subject of the sentence)] + [no comma] + Verb + Predicate

 Here are a few other examples where the –ing word and phrase work as the subject of the sentence:

Brushing your teeth is something you should do twice a day.

Running was his favorite hobby.

Playing the saxophone makes me happy.

Here is another way to break it down:

[-ing word + phrase] + [predicate (verb and object, etc.)]

Example: Completing the project allowed the researchers to discover how to best address the problem.

Here's another way to view this pattern and the sentence in this table to see how they align:

[-ing word + the rest of the connected phrase]	[predicate (verb and object, etc.)]
Completing the project	allowed the researchers to discover how to best address the problem.

To allow your readers to best understand your ideas, remember to consider and then follow these required sentence patterns as well as others. As you proofread, look at your sentences carefully. Ask yourself, Does this part of the sentence have a pattern that requires a corresponding part? Go ahead and mismatch your socks, but if you want to communicate clearly, remember to avoid mismatching sentence patterns.  

Rachel Grammer is a writing instructor and the coordinator of student messaging at the Writing Center. A self-professed grammar nerd, she loves discovering the social interests of Walden students and hearing the stories that shine through their writing.

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