Day 216: Repeat to in complex series.

You can link many words and phrases together with one word. Consider this sentence.

“The officer directed the driver to slow down, obey traffic laws, and use his turn signal.”

In this sentence, the word “to” is linked to “slow,” “obey,” and “use.” This is common and fine. Each phrase in the predicate (e.g., “to slow down”) is simple, so the sentence doesn’t have problems with clarity.

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However, when the predicate contains several complex phrases or clauses linked with to, clarity suffers. Consider this sentence.

“The officer directed the driver to keep his speed low, preferably under the speed limit, pay attention to other drivers, including those who appear to be following traffic regulations and those obviously not, and use his turn signals before changing lanes, unlike most drivers who give them a single blink when half-way into the next lane.”

This sentence is fine grammatically, and, if you work at it, you can find the three items in the series. (They begin with “keep,” “pay,” and “use.”) They are complex (e.g., “pay attention to other drivers, including those who appear to be following traffic regulations and those obviously not”).

To make the work less difficult for the reader, however, we don’t use to as a linking word. We repeat it for every item in the series. This helps the reader find the items. Here is the same sentence, repeating to.

“The officer directed the driver to keep his speed low, preferably under the speed limit, to pay attention to other drivers, including those who appear to be following traffic regulations and those obviously not, and to use his turn signals before changing lanes, unlike most drivers who give them a single blink when half-way into the next lane.”