The Argument as a Building
One structure, six named parts. The differences between these words are positions, not definitions.
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Six words, six places. A cornerstone is not a pillar because it is somewhere else.
Building words like foundation and pillar for arguments and institutions, without mixing them with other pictures.
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A sentence made entirely of correct words that a native reader stops on. Work out why before you read on.
The cornerstone of the reform programme has been steadily eroded by a rising groundswell of opposition.
Every word is correct. Every collocation is legal — cornerstone of, steadily eroded, a groundswell of opposition all occur constantly in serious writing.
And most readers will stop on it. Before reading on: say what is wrong.
The checking procedure, the three items that carry hidden claims, and the verbs that belong to this family and no other.
1. Name the picture. What is the noun literally? A stone. A wave. A root.
2. Scan the rest of the sentence. Is anything else from a different picture?
3. If yes, change one of them — usually to the plain word.
Step 3 matters. The fix for a mixed metaphor is almost never a better metaphor; it is deleting one of them.
The cornerstone of the reform has been eroded by a groundswell of opposition.
→ The cornerstone of the reform has been undermined by sustained local opposition.
Undermined is a building word — literally, to dig away the ground beneath a wall. One picture, and the sentence stops wobbling.
One structure, six named parts. The differences between these words are positions, not definitions.
Six words, six places. A cornerstone is not a pillar because it is somewhere else.
Six sentences. Three mix families, and two of the three that do not are correct because they declined a second metaphor.
Picture each sentence literally before you answer. Every word in every option is correct academic English — you are checking whether the pictures agree.
Three of the six mix families. Of the three that do not, two are correct precisely because the writer used a plain word where a second metaphor would have clashed.
"The cornerstone of the alliance has been eroded by years of mutual suspicion."
Three chains. Name the picture already in the sentence before you add a second one — and once, decline to.
Chain 1
The sentence to complete: Judicial independence is the ______ of the entire constitutional settlement, and nothing else in it works without that.
Candidates: bedrock / pillar
Step 1 — Is this element one of a set, or the thing everything else sits on?
Step 2 — Therefore the expert writes: Judicial independence is the of the entire settlement.
Chain 2
The sentence to complete: Public support for the levy has ebbed steadily since the first year, and the ______ for it was thin to begin with.
Candidates: cornerstone / basis
Step 1 — What picture is ALREADY in this sentence?
Step 2 — Therefore the expert writes: …and the for it was thin to begin with.
Chain 3
The sentence to complete: Two further studies have appeared, and they ______ a finding the authors themselves called preliminary.
Candidates: buttress / establish
Step 1 — What does the charged candidate quietly claim about the finding?
Step 2 — Therefore the expert writes: …and they a finding the authors themselves called preliminary.