Perfect Symmetry: Using "Not Only ... But Also" Correctly with the Help of Pinker's Bracketing Technique
Updated: Oct 9
In this post, we'll see examples of how to handle "not only ... but also" constructions correctly by using a simple bracketing technique that Pinker describes in The Sense of Style. To get a sense of the terrain we'll be exploring, examine the following sentences:
He is not only clever but also vain.
She is not only kind but also a good nurse.
The climate change preparedness of countries is shaped not only by their long-term vision but also their short-term plans to reduce emissions.
As the volume of research increases, researchers are encouraged not only to explore the outcomes of autocratic leadership from an organizational perspective but also to apply these learnings to understand the concept of freedom within organizational contexts.
He was able to recognize not only these different requirements but was also able to devise a solution that addressed all of them.
FarmTech ensured that not only would its products be tailored to meet the needs of the farmers but also the farmers would be able to afford them.
This report describes in detail not only the technical details of the methodology but also provides recommendations for approaching such evaluations.
She was able to identify not only these diverse needs but was also able to formulate solutions for all of them.
Because its introduction was not motivated by market factors but by non-financial factors ...
He wants us to practice charity by not only giving gifts but also by using kind words.
... because they are not only involved in production but also work as guards, cooks, and so on.
He has not only maintained but also improved upon the ideas of his predecessors.
Not only did Samuel start playing the piano before he could speak, but his mother taught him to compose music at a very early age.
The basic idea underlying the correct use of "not only ... but also" is simple: the parts of the sentence following "not only" and "but also" must be balanced, in the sense that they must belong to the same part of speech (or lexical category, as Pinker would put it): both must be nouns, or both must be adjectives, etc.
For example, take Sentence 1 in the above list. "Not only" is followed by "clever," an adjective, and "but also" is followed by "vain," which is also an adjective. So, this "not only ... but also" construction is balanced. This is an example of parallelism, an important concept that comes up in many contexts, such as lists. For instance, consider a simple list with just two entries: "Water pumping" and "Harvesting grain." These entries are not parallel and therefore should be changed to either "Water pumping" and "Grain harvesting" or "Pumping water" and "Harvesting grain," which would make the entries parallel.
With this in mind, consider Sentence 2 in the above list. This construction is imbalanced: what follows "not only" is an adjective ("kind"), but what follows "but also" is a noun phrase ("a good nurse"). Is this a grammatical error? No, but it is sloppy. Here is one way to fix the sentence: "She is not only a kind person but also a good nurse." Now, we have noun phrases on both sides.
With short and simple sentences, this kind of imbalance is easy to recognize and fix. But with the kind of complex sentences that I meet in academic writing, it is not so simple. We have already examined two sentences from the above list of thirteen sentences; nine of the remaining eleven sentences are from my practice (they have been altered to hide their origin). It was in Pinker's The Sense of Style that I came across a discussion of the "not only ... but also" construction that sensitized me to the problem, which I must confess I had been blissfully unaware of until then. Pinker describes the problem and gives an excellent tool for its diagnosis and solution.
Let's apply Pinker's bracketing technique to Sentence 3. The first step is to bracket the words that come after "not only" and "but also," like this:
The climate change preparedness of countries is shaped not only (by their long-term vision) but also (their short-term plans) to reduce emissions.
The problem is now clear: the first word after "not only" is "by" (a preposition), but the corresponding word after "but also" is "their" (a pronoun). The fix is now obvious: we insert "by" after "but also":
The climate change preparedness of countries is shaped not only (by their long-term vision) but also (by their short-term plans) to reduce emissions.
We now have parallel structure. Note that "by" is followed in both cases by noun phrases ("their long-term vision" and "their short-term plans". However, there is a further refinement. Because "by" begins both noun phrases, we can relocate it as follows, producing the following simpler sentence:
The climate change preparedness of countries is shaped by not only (their long-term vision) but also (their short-term plans) to reduce emissions.
Now consider the following variant of the above sentence:
The climate change preparedness of countries is shaped not only by (their long-term vision) but also by (how they plan in the short term) to reduce emissions.
This is clearly not parallel ("plan" is a verb), and such sentences should ideally be made parallel. Sometimes major surgery may be needed to correct such sentences.
Let us turn now to Sentence 4:
As the volume of research increases, researchers are encouraged not only (to explore the outcomes of autocratic leadership from an organizational perspective) but also (to apply these learnings) to understand the concept of freedom within organizational contexts.
Clearly, parallelism is on display here, but as in the previous example, we can refine this sentence by shifting "to" to the beginning of the "not only ... but also" construction:
As the volume of research increases, researchers are encouraged to not only (explore the outcomes of autocratic leadership from an organizational perspective) but also (apply these learnings) to understand the concept of freedom within organizational contexts.
This is a simpler sentence. Note that all these improvements are enabled by our use of the brackets, which expose the junctions between "not only ... but also" and its parent sentence. It's a simple but revolutionary (at least, to me) tool, and I suppose for a linguist who eats complicated tree diagrams for breakfast, coming up with this was child's play.
Consider Sentence 5 now:
He was able to recognize not only (these different requirements) but was also (able to devise a solution) that addressed all of them.
Parallelism is lacking because the first bracketed element is a noun phrase, unlike the second bracketed element. Here's the repaired sentence:
He was not only (able to recognize these different requirements) but was also (able to devise a solution) that addressed all of them.
This looks fine, but a close look reveals a problem: "but also" is interrupted by the word "was". This can be fixed by moving "was" as follows:
He not only (was able to recognize these different requirements) but also (was able to devise a solution) that addressed all of them.
Perfect!!
Not quite. As before, we can simplify this sentence by moving common elements to the beginning of the "not only ... but also" construction:
He was able to not only (recognize these different requirements) but also (devise a solution) that addressed all of them.
This sentence is not only balanced but also shorter and simpler than our previous attempt.
I've discussed enough examples of how Pinker's bracketing technique can be used to troubleshoot "not only ... but also" constructions. You can now try your hand at Sentences 6 to 12. The solutions are at the end of this post.
Before winding up this post, I want to summarize what I have learned by reading about "not only ... but also" from various sources. "Not only ... but also" is a correlative conjunction (Pinker uses the term coordinator instead of conjunction, for reasons that are too complicated to go into here). Other correlative conjunctions are "both ... and," "either ... or," "neither ... nor," and "not ... but." Notice that these conjunctions come in pairs (as implied by "correlative"), which is why the concept of symmetry, balance, or parallelism comes into play.
However, the precise word that expresses this concept is not any of these words; it is coordination. After all, conjunctions coordinate, and so that is what correlative conjunctions do: they too coordinate. When correlative conjunctions do their job well, the two parts of the sentence they connect are perfectly coordinated, and the overall effect is graceful. Otherwise, the effect is jarring, like singers in a duet out of sync or dance partners colliding.
Is a comma inserted between "not only ... but also"? Generally not, though I have read that it can be inserted in special cases to sharpen the contrast between the two parts following "not only" and "but also." For example, "He contacted not only the secretary, but also the minister." Another point to be noted is that the "also" in "but also" is optional; it may be omitted, especially in short sentences, for example, "He is not only clever but vain." However, the "also" does seem to add emphasis, as in "She is not only kind but also a good nurse."
Finally, a caveat: I'm no grammarian. I'm just a copyeditor who has to make dozens of decisions about grammar every day while I'm slogging in the trenches. Grammatical knowledge is a survival skill, and I learn as much about it as I can.
Solutions to Sentences 6–13
FarmTech ensured that not only (would its products be tailored to meet the needs of the farmers) but also (the farmers would be able to afford them).
The coordination is askew here. The fix required some thought, but I finally realized that "that" and "not only" needed to be interchanged:
FarmTech ensured not only (that its products would be tailored to meet the needs of the farmers) but also (that the farmers would be able to afford them).
This report describes in detail not only (the technical details of the methodology) but also (provides recommendations for approaching such evaluations).
We'll slide "not only" near the front of the sentence:
This report not only (describes in detail the technical details of the methodology) but also (provides recommendations for approaching such evaluations).
She was able to identify not only (these diverse needs) but was also (able to formulate solutions for all of them).
The remedy is similar to that used for Sentence 7:
She was able to not only (identify these diverse needs) but also (formulate solutions for all of them).
Notice how the redundant "able to" was removed from the second bracketed part.
Because its introduction was not (motivated by market factors) but (by non-financial factors) ...
This is a sentence fragment, and the correlative conjunction is "not ... but." The same principle applies, and an interchange of words fixes the problem:
Because its introduction was motivated not (by market factors) but (by non-financial factors) ...
He wants us to practice charity by not only (giving gifts) but also (by using kind words).
The same fix as for the previous sentence works:
He wants us to practice charity not only (by giving gifts) but also (by using kind words).
... because they are not only (involved in production) but also (work as guards, cooks, and so on).
This requires surgery:
... because they are involved not only (in production) but also (in non-production roles such as guards, cooks, and so on).
Alternatively:
.. because they work not only (as factory hands) but also (as guards, cooks, and so on).
He has not only (maintained) but also (improved upon) the ideas of his predecessors.
I'm a little puzzled by this one, which appears as an exercise in the 11th edition of Harbrace College Handbook (Hodges et al, 1991, p. 278). The instructions are to "revise each sentence to use parallel structure to express parallel ideas." Perhaps this is what is required:
He has not only (maintained) but also (improved) the ideas of his predecessors.
The preposition "upon" may stick in some throats. Perhaps the point is that "maintained" is a verb, whereas "improved upon" is a phrasal verb.
Alternatively, perhaps this will also pass muster:
He has not only (persevered with) but also (improved upon) the ideas of his predecessors.
Not only (did Samuel start playing the piano before he could speak), but (his mother taught him to compose music at a very early age).
This too puzzles me. It's given as an example of perfect coordination in Britannica Dictionary because the parts after "not only" and "but also" are "both main clauses." But as far as I can tell, "did Samuel start playing the piano before he could speak" is not a main clause.
This is a problematic sentence in my eyes not only because the coordination is faulty but also because the subject shifts abruptly: the subject is "Samuel" in the "not only" part, but changes to "his mother" in the "but also" part. Fixing this requires major surgery, and I would do the following:
Samuel not only (started playing the piano before he could speak) but also (learned from his mother to compose music at a very early age).
The above construction is indisputably parallel, and the focus is maintained on Samuel, the subject of the sentence. I slipped in "also" because it sounds natural here. (If I were copyediting this sentence, I would suggest this modification to the author.)
Sources
Ask the editor: Not only... But (also). (n.d.). The Britannica Dictionary. https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/eb/qa/not-only-but-also
Leggett, G., Mead, D. C., & Kramer, M. G. (1991). Prentice-Hall handbook for writers (11th ed.). Prentice-Hall.
Parallelism with not only but also. (n.d.). Grammarly. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/writing-techniques/parallelism-with-not-only-but-also/
Pinker, S. (2015). The sense of style: The thinking person’s guide to writing in the 21st century. Penguin Books.
Hodges, J. C., Whitten, M. E., Horner, W. B., & Webb, S. S (1990). Harbrace college workbook (11th ed.). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
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