Going Rogue

My family loves musical theater. Even my dad. Actually, especially my dad. I grew up going to see productions of Fiddler on the Roof, West Side Story, Les Miserable, Oklahoma… "where the wind comes sweeping down the plains." That’s right, when you grow up watching musicals, you tend to spontaneously break out into song- like the cast of Glee.

I particularly remember seeing the musical A Chorus Line when I was around ten years old because there was one part that really confused me. A Chorus Line is about a group of dancers auditioning for a spot in a Broadway chorus line. Toward the end, the director tells one of the dancers that she is too good to be in the chorus. I remember thinking that if she’s so good why doesn’t he pick her. Spoiler alert: he ends up picking her.

But, now I get it. A chorus is a group of dancers who perform synchronized routines. It would be distracting if one of the dancers were superior to the others. It’ s like what I was saying about Destiny’s Child and Beyonce.

Our sentences also need to be synchronized. Sometimes in our sentences, we have a chorus of items, and sometimes one of the items- maybe even more than one- tries to showcase its own style. For example,

The first dancer liked doing jazz hands, singing "Pour Some Sugar on Me," and to do the Running Man.

Here’s are the members of the chorus:

1. Doing jazz hands
2. Singing "Pour Some Sugar on Me"
3. To do the Running Man

Do you see the problem there? The patterns of the items are not all the same. The third one went rogue. They should all either use the ing pattern:

The first dancer liked doing jazz hands, singing "Pour Some Sugar on Me," and doing the Running Man.

Or the first two items can change to the to pattern:

The first dancer liked to do jazz hands, to sing "Pour Some Sugar on Me," and to do the Running Man.

Sometimes, one of the items goes very rogue. I’m talking Sarah Palin rogue. This, as you can imagine, makes it a lot harder to make it harmonize with the other items. For example,

The dancers were asked to learn a dance routine quickly, accurately, and in a detailed manner.

So, let’s break the items down:

1. Quickly
2. Accurately
3. In a detailed manner

It’s that third item again. It just has to be different. So, to synchronize with the other two items, we’d have to throw an ly on the end. Unfortunately, detailedly is not a word. So, what do we do?

Well, I guess we can change all of the items to adjectives instead of adverbs:

The dancers were asked to learn a dance routine in a quick, accurate, and detailed manner.

But, I think it sounds strange. I’m not too happy about the “quick manner.” So, another option is to ask ourselves if there is a word that ends in ly that means in a detailed manner.

So, we can highlight the word detailed, right-click, click on synonyms and voila- two words we can definitely use: thoroughly or meticulously. I am going to go with meticulously because it’s fancier.

The dancers were asked to learn a dance routine quickly, accurately, and meticulously.

Aaaah! It sounds so much nicer when one of the items is not trying to upstage the others. It’s not all about being one singular sensation.

Did you hear that, Ladies?