hey everyone this is stacy one of the sentence correction experts here on the egmet team and
i'm going to be working through this sentence on dinosaur tracks with you
this is one of my favorite sentences some of my favorite characters are at play here
so go ahead strap on those archaeology hats and let's get to
work digging through this sentence we're going to use that eg matte three-step approach
first step meaning analysis we're going to start digging our way through this sentence extracting
the meaning utilizing that sentence structure so as we begin reading we see dinosaur tracks show
them walking with their feet directly under their bodies now whenever i see pronouns
sitting in a sentence i know that i have these little guys that i call pronoun demons at play
and the first one i see is them dinosaur tracks show them walking so who is them referring to
so i see this little demon and i need to make sure that i associate him properly with what he is
referring to making sure that meaning is logical so dinosaur tracks show something can tracks show
i'm going to put a question mark here i'm going to ask does that even make logical sense can tracks
show something i know tracks can be evidence of something but can i look into tracks and see
dinosaurs walking that doesn't seem very logical now here my author seems to want to be saying
that the tracks show them walking so them here seems to be referring to
dinosaurs logically but grammatically i'm not so sure that can work
but i'm going to keep reading see what's up so dinosaur trucks show them walking with their feet
so again i have this other pronoun demon their feet so whose feet am i talking about here am
i talking about the tracks feet or am i talking about dinosaur feet all right let's keep going
so show them walking with their feet directly under their bodies again this other pronoun demon
whose bodies are we talking about here because tracks don't have bodies so i think my author
is trying to refer to dinosaurs but again i'm not sure grammatically that's going to work out for us
logically yes we want to refer to the dinosaurs but it seems to be that my author has got these
little pronoun demons playing around with this sentence and these pronouns seem to be referring
to tracks which is giving me some illogical meaning now as i keep reading i see like mammals
and birds not extended out to the side in the manner of modern reptiles so i know when i see
like here that i've got a comparison happening so these tracks show them walking with their
feet directly under their bodies like mammals and birds so these dinosaur tracks
are showing that these dinosaurs walked with their feet directly into their bodies like mammals and
birds so this comparison seems to be between how dinosaurs walked and how mammals and birds walked
that seems to be what we're logically looking for here so let's let's work through what
logically seems to be happening or aspects that the tracks show how dinosaurs walked
dinosaurs walked with their feet directly under them like mammals and birds okay so visually i
can see this i've got the dinosaurs like that big t-rex with his legs directly under him
like my yellow lab or a bird would walk okay making sense
third aspect dinosaurs did not walk with their feet out to the side in the
manner of modern reptiles like that little lizard i see running around my front porch
in my desert environment all right so logically i get what my author is going for here but i
think these little pronoun demons that have been running amok in the sentence have really
messed with the meaning so let's go to that error analysis now the error analysis here
is going to be pretty straightforward because we did such a thorough job
really digging into that meaning analysis now we always have to ask that question
does this make sense and again we saw these little demons at play in our sentence and they were
wreaking total havoc on our sentence meaning wise and we need to say what do the pronouns them and
their logically refer to now here logically these should be referring to the dinosaur
but notice here dinosaur's not acting as a noun it's acting as an adjective it's telling
me what type of tracks were seen or what type of tracks show something which again
not logical tracks can't show dinosaurs walking right i can use a track as a piece of
evidence but i can't look into that track and see ancient film footage of a dinosaur walking now i
can sit down with a bucket of popcorn and watch jurassic park and i can see dinosaurs walking
but i can't look into an ancient truck or a fossilized track and see them walking okay so
tracks don't show them walking and dinosaurs not being used as a noun here it's just
describing the type of track so logically it should refer to dinosaur but grammatically
it's referring to tracks and i always recommend a substitution test if you substitute what
the pronouns are actually referring to into the sentence to see if it's logical
then everything comes out clear so let's try that if we substitute the antecedent that
it's referring to tracks we get dinosaur tracks show tracks walking with tracks feet directly
under tracks bodies and this again our pronoun demons have made a complete mess of our sentence
because now we have tracks walking and we know tracks don't walk with tracks
feet and trucks don't have feet directly under tracks bodies which tracks don't have bodies
and look what is also happening with our comparison like here this structure with
this comma plus like is making this comparison between mammals and birds that is sitting here
with our subject of our sentence which in this sentence here is tracks so now we're comparing
tracks with mammals and birds so now the comparison is between how these tracks walk
with their feet directly under their bodies like mammals and birds and that's completely illogical
so our little pronoun demons have completely wreaked havoc on our sentence and we need to
find an answer choice that is logically correct and grammatically correct and we need to get these
pronoun demons disciplined so let's work through this and see what we can do choice a we know
is out because that pronoun demon was completely wreaking havoc on a sentence now let's take a look
at choice b here again we have a bunch of pronoun demons at place here creating a meaning error
the use of the pronouns they and there which you see in red in this choice intend to refer to
dinosaur however as we discussed dinosaur is again being used to describe the tracks it cannot be the
antecedent for either one of these pronouns so the only possible noun entity that these pronouns can
refer to is tracks which creates a logical meaning because as we know tracks do not walk anywhere
they do not have feet under their bodies and again we have that comparison error as
do because now these mammals and birds are still being compared to tracks so choice b again
we have those demons at play so that is out for the same reason the choice a was out now let's
take a look at choice c now we don't have those pronoun demons playing around in this sentence but
notice here that the use of the modifier that is referring to tracks so now again we have a
meaning error because this is saying dinosaurs left tracks tracks showed them walking and again
can i look into these tracks and see ancient film footage that shows dinosaurs walking no
tracks can be evidence of possibly how dinosaurs walked it can be proof that the dinosaurs did walk
but it can't show them walking so choice c is going to be out for this modifier error that
leads to this meaning error now let's take a look at choice d the tracks the dinosaurs left showed
that they walked with their feet directly under their bodies as do mammals and birds now here our
pronoun demons have been completely taken care of you'll notice that dinosaurs is no longer acting
as a descriptive word describing the types of tracks it is telling us that dinosaurs as a noun
left these tracks and they and there is properly referring to the dinosaurs and
telling us the tracks that the dinosaurs left showed that the dinosaurs walked with
their feet the dinosaurs feet directly under the dinosaurs bodies so all of this is making
perfect logical sense and is grammatically correct and we have that proper comparison so choice d
is looking like our correct answer choice but let's take a look at choice e just to be sure
choice e in the tracks they left dinosaurs are shown walking again
meaning air in the tracks dinosaurs are shown walking
no we cannot see dinosaurs walking in the tracks they left so choice e is out for that
same illogical meaning that we had in choice c and that we had in the original sentence tracks cannot
show that dinosaurs are walking so choice d is our absolute best answer logically and grammatically
so a few quick takeaways beware of those pronoun demons always ask does this make sense spending
more time with the sentence up front will save you time later beware of the demons
when the demons come out to play in a sentence and create devastation by altering the meaning of the
sentence they must be disciplined get them locked up and under control so they don't mess with your
meaning and structure changes do not always provide correct answers or correct our problems
always double check the meaning of an option that changes the structure to make sure it is logically
and grammatically correct i hope this solution helped answer your questions today happy learning