‘In spite of’ or ‘Despite’
This is used to combine or rewrite sentences denoting contradictory facts.
Eg: 1. Martin was intelligent. But he could not solve the problem.
- Although Mary sang beautifully, she did not get first prize.
Here, as we can see, the above two examples show contradictory facts. These types of sentences can be combined or rewritten by using ‘In spite of’ or ‘Despite’.
Now, let’s study how to combine or rewrite the sentences by going through the following steps.
I First of all, ‘ In spite of ‘/ ‘Despite’ is to be written in the beginning of the first sentence ( in the case of combining sentences ) or the subordinate clause ( in the case of rewriting sentences), and also the ‘words’ or ‘phrases’ similar in meaning to ‘ Inspite of’ / ‘Despite’ such as, ‘but’, ‘yet’, ‘ however’, ‘though’, ‘although’, ‘even though’, ‘even if’, etc….
II After writing ‘In spite of’ / ‘Despite’, the first sentence or the subordinate clause is to be changed as a phrase.
While being changed as a phrase, ‘the subject’ of the sentence or the subordinate clause is to be changed in ‘possessive adjective form’ and ‘the adjective’ is to be changed in ‘noun form’, if the sentence or the subordinate clause has an ‘adjective’.
Here, the sentence “ Martin was intelligent” in the first example has an adjective “ intelligent”.
To combine this sentence, after writing ‘In spite of’ / ‘Despite’, as we see in the second step, the subject ‘Martin’ is to be changed in possessive adjective form ‘ His’ and the adjective ‘ intelligent’ is to be changed in its noun form ‘ intelligence’, as written below,
In spite of his intelligence,…………
or
Despite his intelligence,……………
If the sentence or the subordinate clause has an ‘adverb’, then its verb is to be changed in its ‘noun form’ and the adverb is to be changed in its ‘adjective form’ and also the adjective is to be written before the ‘noun form’ of the verb.
To make it clear, let’s bring here the second example.
Although Mary sang beautifully, she did not get first prize.
Here, as we see, the subordinate clause “ Although Mary sang beautifully,” has a verb ‘sang’ and an adverb ‘ beautifully’.
As stated above, while the subordinate clause being changed as a phrase, its subject ‘Mary’ should be in possessive adjective form ‘ Her’ and its verb ‘sang’ should be in noun form ‘ song’ and its adverb ‘beautifully’ should be in adjective form ‘ beautiful’ and also the adjective form should be written before the noun form.
So the subordinate clause in the second example can be written as shown below,
In spite of her beautiful song, …………..
Or
Despite her beautiful song,…………
Here, we can see the adjective form ‘beautiful’ is written before the noun form ‘song’, as mentioned above.
III Then the second sentence is to be written after avoiding the words or phrases similar in meaning to ‘In spite of’ and ‘Despite’ such as, ‘ but’, ‘yet’, ‘however’, ‘though’, ‘although’, ‘even though’, ‘even if’, etc…..
So, here, the sentences in the first example “ Martin was intelligent. But he could not solve the problem” can be combined as shown below,
In spite of his intelligence, Martin could not solve the problem.
Or
Despite his intelligence, Martin could not solve the problem.
Here, the word ‘But’ similar in meaning to ‘Inspite of’ / ‘Despite’ is avoided.
And also, the second example “ Although Mary sang beautifully, she did not get first prize” can be rewritten as ,
In spite of her beautiful song, Mary did not get the first prize.
Or
Despite her beautiful song, Mary did not get first prize.
Here, the word ‘Although’ similar in meaning to ‘In spite of’ or ‘Despite’ is avoided