Learn English – Should the verb phrases following “either” and “or” in an “either/or” sentence have the same structure

grammaticality

Should the verb phrases following either and or in an "either or" sentence have the same structure?

For example, is the following sentence correct?

The coordinates of the points are either given or can be easily calculated.

An alternative to that sentence might be :

The coordinates of the points can either be given or be easily calculated.

I want to use the first one and wonder if it is correct or not.

Best Answer

Edwin Ashworth's comment explains the structural problem that exists in the first option: The point at which either appears creates a node from which (usually) two parallel ideas emerge. Structurally, the words preceding either in the sentence or clause apply equally to both parallel ideas. Thus the sentence

The coordinates of the points are either given or can be easily calculated.

contains two parallel ideas that logically consist of these words:

The coordinates of the points are given.

and

The coordinates of the points are can be easily calculated.

Obviously, the are in the second parallel construction shouldn't be there, and it's easy enough to get rid of. In fact, you have multiple options for avoiding the structural anomaly. For instance:

The coordinates of the points either are given or can be easily calculated.

Either the coordinates of the points are given or they can be easily calculated.

The coordinates of the points are given or can be easily calculated.

Alternatively, you can avoid the problem by dispensing with the either/or construction altogether. For example:

If the coordinates of the points are not given, they can be easily calculated.

If the coordinates of the points are missing, you can easily calculate them.

I should emphasize that I'm talking about the structural logic of your original sentence—not about its comprehensibility to people who are fluent in English and therefore able to look beyond the actual structure of the sentence to glean its intended meaning. In general, you're better off avoiding flaws in parallel structure than leaving to each of your readers the task of silently (and perhaps subconsciously) correcting them for you.

Related Solutions

Learn English – Is it, “otherwise directed” vs. “directed otherwise”

I think in this case, "otherwise directed" has become a standard idiomatic construction--but both are acceptable.

Contrast this with:

Do something unless you are told otherwise.

Do something unless you are otherwise told.

Here, the former sentence still sounds okay, but the latter sentence sounds unnatural.

Learn English – omit the verb in the second part of this sentence, after the colons

The part after the colon is a subordinate clause in this case, so it's fine for it not to have a verb. There are a couple of other problems, however.

"Differently from other works" - as others have noted, this is awkward at the beginning of a sentence (and unnecessarily wordy elsewhere in a sentence). Try "Unlike" instead.
"they consider" - I assume the previous text gives a referent for "they"?
"automatic generated content" - since automatic modifies generated, not content, it needs to be an adverb, not an adjective; and because the phrase "automatically generated" is being used as a single adjective modifying "content", it needs a hyphen: automatically-generated content.

Rewrite:

Unlike other works, they consider all information usually available in social media collections: both user-provided information such as textual content (titles, descriptions, and tags) and automatically-generated content (creation time and geo-coordinates).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Learn English – Is it, “otherwise directed” vs. “directed otherwise”

Learn English – omit the verb in the second part of this sentence, after the colons

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