Cleft sentences & inversion

Article excerpt · target grammar marked

It is not the algorithm that drives you mad — it is the waiting. Not since the industrial revolution has the labour market reorganised so rapidly. What the headline number obscures is a second ledger. Only by disaggregating the data does the real story emerge.

Grammar Reference · Cleft sentences & inversion

It is … that (cleft)

Moves emphasis to the subject. It is the waiting that drives you mad. — not the work itself.

What … is (cleft)

Foregrounds what is new or surprising. What the number hides is a second ledger. — the hidden truth.

Inversion: Not since

Adds formal, rhetorical weight. Not since 1900 has work changed so fast. Subject and auxiliary invert.

Common error

Only by looking, you can see. ✗ → Only by looking can you see. ✓ — auxiliary must precede subject.

01Exercise 1 — Form · Write the Correct Form

Cleft sentences & inversion

1. the worker, not the platform, that absorbs the cost of a slow week.

2. the data hides is a cohort of primary-income workers earning below minimum wage.

3.Not since the 1920s so many workers classified as independent contractors.

4.Only by reading the fine print you understand the true trade-off.

5.It is the primary-income gig worker bears the sharpest edge of the arrangement.

6.What the Riders' Law in Spain was reclassify delivery riders as employees.

02Exercise 2 — Transform

rewrite with the new structure

1.The platform, not the worker, controls the pricing algorithm.

2.The article shows that risk is what the worker carries.

3.Work has never changed so rapidly since the nineteenth century.

4.You can appreciate the true cost only by examining the full data.

03Exercise 3 — About You

in your notebook

Personalise: complete five sentences about yourself using the target grammar.

Cleft sentences & inversion01classplan.ai