Is it ok to have two 'and's in a sentence?

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ghsb12

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Is it ok to have two 'and's in a sentence?

For example:
To become our customers' most trusted and valued project management training and consulting services provider.

It sounds kinda weird to me, but I don't know how to rephrase it.
 

Cassie

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Is it ok to have two 'and's in a sentence?

For example:
To become our customers' most trusted and valued project management training and consulting services provider.

It sounds kinda weird to me, but I don't know how to rephrase it.

Your sentence sounds okay to me.

There will be be times when there are too many "ands." A good sense of usage and grammar should guide you.
 
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It's possible to have five ands in a row.

There was once a signwriter who was hired to make up the sign for a pub named the 'George and Dragon'. When it was completed, he asked the landlord what he thought.

The landlord wasn't happy with it and said, "There's too much of a space between George and and, and and and Dragon."
 

Dale Emery

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To become our customers' most trusted and valued project management training and consulting services provider.

It sounds kinda weird to me, but I don't know how to rephrase it.

The two ands are fine, but I agree that there's something awkward about the fragment. I think there's too much stuff between trusted and provider, which forces readers to keep a lot of info in their heads before getting to the key noun.

Try this: To become our customers' most trusted and valued provider of project management training and consulting services.

Also, if this is an ongoing goal (such as part of a mission statement), consider "To be our customers' most trusted..." The goal to become a thing ends once you've become it, and as long as you hold this goal, it implies that you are not yet that thing. The goal to be a thing continues indefinitely, even when you already are that thing.

Dale
 
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Kalyke

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It is a very long way of saying one thing. The whole Nominative clause is awkward but that is to be expected in Business writing.

To become... something. and then a string of adjectives. Yo could cut out some of those adgectives to make the sentance clearer unless it is contractual that you string all those words together in that way. I would take out "and valued" to pare it down some.
 

RobJ

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I wrote a short story that was rejected by a small print mag because it contained 'too many ands'. I was advised that if I read it aloud I would be able to hear them and could revise the story to remove them. I chose not to, because they were deliberate. I subbed the story, without further revision, to a writing comp and took first place and a cheque for £150.

Who was right, the print mag or the comp? Both, of course.

Cheers,
Rob
 

blacbird

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Using multiple "and"s for equivalent purposes in a series, such as "The dog and cat and mouse and frog and lizard all went to the movies" works okay. An awkwardness can arise when you use "and" in different contexts within a single sentence, which is what is done in the OP subject sentence. It's made even more awkward by the multiple-adjective phrases "valued project management training" and "consulting services provider". A quick rule of thumb is, if you have to read the sentence twice to puzzle out the relationships indicated by the "and"s, you probably should rewrite the sentence.

caw
 
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Dark Cyril

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Is it ok to have two 'and's in a sentence?

For example:
To become our customers' most trusted and valued project management training and consulting services provider.

It sounds kinda weird to me, but I don't know how to rephrase it.

It's perfectly fine. On another note, using multiple conjunctions in a sentence to avoid using commas is also kosher.

For example:

"I need to go to the store to get butter, milk, bread, and eggs."

"I need to go to the store to get butter and milk and bread and eggs."

Both are correct.

Remember, it's your narrative voice. You may run into an editor who wants you to change it. You may find another editor that wants you to change it back. That's just the way of it.

To quote Han Solo, just fly casual.
 

stc

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"Is it ok to have two 'and's in a sentence?"

I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was all right only she was full of water.
—Ernest Hemingway, "After the Storm."

See:
polysyndeton
http://rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/P/polysyndeton.htm

...and while you're at it, see:
asyndeton
http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/A/asyndeton.htm
 

ErylRavenwell

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Is it ok to have two 'and's in a sentence?

For example:
To become our customers' most trusted and valued project management training and consulting services provider.

It sounds kinda weird to me, but I don't know how to rephrase it.

This sentence is the equivalent of what the military would call a "clusterfuck", and the two and's are the least of its problem. I need some aspirin.
 
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maestrowork

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Is it ok to have two 'and's in a sentence?

For example:
To become our customers' most trusted and valued project management training and consulting services provider.

It sounds kinda weird to me, but I don't know how to rephrase it.

Multiple ands are fine. Hemingway did that all the time.
 

ideagirl

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Is it ok to have two 'and's in a sentence?

For example:
To become our customers' most trusted and valued project management training and consulting services provider.

It sounds kinda weird to me, but I don't know how to rephrase it.

The "ands" aren't what makes it sound weird. Try this:

To become our customers' most trusted and valued provider of project management training and consulting services.

It still sounds like management-speak, because that's what it is, but at least it has some structure to it now, instead of being a long, long, LONG string of adjectives and "ands."
 
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