I’m having a debate with someone over the sentence below. Both of us think the part about “assistance reserving a seat” is awkward (something like ‘please call 1-555-555-5555 for assistance with your seat reservation’ flows much better IMO) , but I’m trying to figure out if it’s grammatically incorrect. What say you?
“If you require a specific seat to accommodate a disability, please call 1-555-555-5555 for assistance reserving a seat.”
What rule do you think is being violated? I don’t even think it’s awkward.
I haven’t found a grammatical rule that it’s breaking, that’s why I’m asking. But I do think it’s a bit awkward.
Grammatically it’s OK, but if you wanted to tighten it up, you could. For example:
If you require a specific seat to accommodate a disability, please call our reservation line at 1-555-555-5555.
Grammatically it’s fine. I think what throws you off is that English spoken comfortably by native speakers tends to have a smooth rhythm to it, and the end of that sentence has a different meter from the rest of it.
Suggested change:
“If you require accommodation due to disability, please call 1-555-555-5555 for assistance reserving a seat.”
By changing the first part of the line, the second part seems less awkward. To my ear anyway.
Are you wondering whether there should be a preposition between assistance and reserving? I.e., “assistance in/with/while reserving a seat”?
I think it sounds better with a preposition. But what I’m really asking is if there’s any outright incorrect grammar in the sentence, and so far everyone is saying no, which was my gut feeling as well.
IMHO, there is a grammatical problem. The form of the last clause is V NP, that is a verb (in this case a verbal noun, but from a grammatical point of view, there is no difference in the structure of the clause, except it ought to be called a phrase. The NP consists of another verbal noun and its direction object. Now what is the grammatical relation between “assist” and “reserving a seat”? As far as I am concerned, when the verb “assist” takes a direct object, it is the one assisted, not the thing he is assisted with. Now you can dispute this and say that it is rather like, “I gave him a book” in which the indirect object appears without preposition. Nonetheless, and I admit it is not clearcut, I would judge it ungrammatical. Use a preposition, “in” or “with”. Better yet is the alternate wording suggested in the OP which is much more elegant.
One or the other of us doesn’t understand nearly as much about English grammar as they think they do, because I can’t make head or tail out of anything you just said. Are you arguing that the noun assistance takes an object because the verb assist does? That’s honestly as close as I can come to making out your argument here.
In the last clause, I see
[you] subject
call verb
1-555-555-555 direct object
for assistance: prepositional phrase modifying “call” telling “why”
reserving a seat: As it is, this would be a participle phrase modifying “assistance,” the object of the prepositional phrase.
If you use the word “in” and have it become “in reserving a seat,” in that case, that would appear to me to become a gerund phrase being the object of the preposition “in,” and the prepositional phrase “in reserving a seat” then modifies “assistance.”
There are no indirect objects involved here.
I don’t think it’s grammatically incorrect as is, but it’s redundant; the final prepositional phrase is completely unnecessary: “If you require a specific seat to accommodate a disability, please call 1-555-555-5555.”
I’m not in New Jersey, therefore you’re not me…
FWIW, I got tripped up on the first part: “If you require a specific seat to accommodate a disability…”
When I first read it, I parsed it as saying that “to accommodate a disability” was something the specific seat was supposed to do—kind of parallel to “If you want a specific Doper to answer your question, you should send them a PM.”
I don’t think this is a grammatical error. It might be something akin to a misplaced modifier, or it might just be my own fault for reading it wrong.
The redundancy is the problem. The seat has already been mentioned, and it’s awkward in English to mention it again, instead of using pronoun. The least awkward version of the sentence without completely rewriting it is “If you require a specific seat to accommodate a disability, please call 1-555-555-5555 for assistance,” but that doesn’t quite say what the assistance is for. You could get buy with “If you require a specific seat to accommodate a disability, please call 1-555-555-5555 for assistance reserving one,” but that still seems awkward due to flow considerations. The best version I can come up with that maintains as much as the original as possible is “If you need to reserve a specific seat to accommodate a disability, please call 1-555-555-5555 for assistance.”