Does the Lack of Parallel Structure Bother You?

The following sentence appeared recently in the New York Times:

“Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, are also involved in the selection process.”

As an editor, I’m bothered by the lack of consistency here: Whereas Blanken’s title precedes his name, Sullivan’s title comes after his name. Thus, I would tweak the wording as follows:

“Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan are also involved in the selection process.”

Yet when presented with this edit, my colleague Paul Stregevsky raised an interesting point that never occurred to me:

“When a major publication like the New York Times goes out of its way to avoid an easy parallel structure, we should ask ourselves, What were they thinking? What they were thinking, I think, is this: It’s obvious that there’s only one Secretary of State. But it’s not as obvious that there’s only one national security advisor. That’s why they needed to flip the sequence — so they could say ‘the’ national security advisor. I could be wrong, but I’ve made the same decision for very similar reasons.”

In response, I offered the following middle ground:

“The National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken are also involved in the selection process.”

Paul’s response is again worth quoting:

“That would satisfy the concern that I attributed to their editors. Of course, it risks making the Secretary of State seem like the second fiddle. As the saying goes, there are no solutions; only trade-offs.”

So there you have it: Two word nerds discussing the possible motives behind not editing a single, seemingly unobjectionable sentence.

If you’re as semantically enthralled as we are, let us know what the editor in you would do.👇