Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[nawee]

Hello,

Another odd sentence I came across in an English exercise.

"Cremation is common in Asia; whereas, burial is in Europe."

Is it acceptable to omit "common" here?

Is the use of ( appropriate here?

Can you help rewrite this sentence? (If you find this sentence odd too, that is)

Thank you,

Nawee

[Mister Micawber]

.
The sentence is OK.
.
_________________
"I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences." � Gertrude Stein
...............
Canadian-American who teaches English for a living at Mr Micawber's

[CP]

I would puncutate it thus:

"Cremation is common in Asia, whereas burial is in Europe."

If you want to shorten it even further, try:

"Cremation is common in Asia; in Europe, burial."
_________________
You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb

[Mary W. Ng]

[CP]

Yes, and it's better with that parallelism.
_________________
You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb

[nawee]

Is it acceptable to use the semi-colon before a clause beginning with "whereas"? I learned that the semicolon is used to link independent clauses instead of full stops. "Whereas burial is in Europe" is an indendent clause? I normally see "whereas" after a comma like the sentence CP suggested.

Thank you,

Nawee