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"Equal Parts" or "Equal Parts of"?

Posted: 14 Aug 2019, 11:30
by MsTri
In the following sentence, should there be the word "of" after the phrase "equal parts"? If you respond, can you note where you found the information? I don't think there should be an 'of', but I'm having trouble finding official proof either way:

"Dorothy was a lot more mature than her namesake, and Lieutenant Lou Dreyfuss was very flexible, showing equal parts leniency and firmness."

Thank you for any assistance you can give.

Re: "Equal Parts" or "Equal Parts of"?

Posted: 14 Aug 2019, 13:10
by Helen_Combe
I would never use ‘of’ after equal parts. I would use ‘in’ before.

Here is a page that agrees with me

https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/sente ... parts.html

Re: "Equal Parts" or "Equal Parts of"?

Posted: 20 Aug 2019, 19:05
by Juliet+1
MsTri wrote: 14 Aug 2019, 11:30 In the following sentence, should there be the word "of" after the phrase "equal parts"? If you respond, can you note where you found the information? I don't think there should be an 'of', but I'm having trouble finding official proof either way:

"Dorothy was a lot more mature than her namesake, and Lieutenant Lou Dreyfuss was very flexible, showing equal parts leniency and firmness."

Thank you for any assistance you can give.
Well, if I were in your situation I would solve the problem by replacing "equal parts" with "both." But if I absolutely had to choose I would not use "of." I've seen the version without "of" sometimes while reading, but I've never seen the version 'with,' and it just doesn't sound right.

Re: "Equal Parts" or "Equal Parts of"?

Posted: 28 Aug 2019, 22:16
by gen_g
I would usually use "equal parts" without "of", mainly for stylistics (which seem to be pretty common/accepted as well). Still, I think that the technically grammatical version would be the inclusion of "of".