We know we can use the word ‘include/including’ as a verb. Sometimes it causes confusion when used as a preposition. Let’s take an official question to understand how the word ‘including’ is used as a preposition.
Question. First United States Senator Daniel Inouye was appointed to several posts within the Democratic party during his first term, that included assistant majority whip and vice-chair of the Democratic Senatorial Committee.
(A) that included
(B) which includes
(C) including
(D) some of which were
(E) among them being
The sentence tells us that Daniel Inouye was appointed to several posts and then it gives us two examples of posts to which he was appointed – assistant majority whip and vice-chair of the Democratic Senatorial Committee.
These two are the examples of the posts to which he was appointed. We can use ‘including’ to give examples especially when there is something specific about the examples you are giving.
We know that ‘such as’ is used to give generic examples.
I like many subjects such as English, History and Math.
‘Including’ is used to give specific examples that you want to emphasize for some reason.
I like many subjects including Math. (Probably, Math is supposed to be hard and few people like it, but hey, I still like it)
In option (A), we have ‘that’ after a comma which is odd since it must be an essential modifier. Also, in options (A) and (B), ‘that’ and ‘which’ seem to modify ‘his first term’ but the examples given are of the posts he was appointed to.
The use of ‘being’ in option (E) is incorrect since ‘being’ depicts a temporary state.
In option (D), it is awkward to use ‘some’ to give a fixed number of examples.
‘some of which were’ functions as a modifier. Consider a different sentence:
Senator Daniel Inouye was appointed to several posts within the Democratic party during his first term, some of which were critical to the country’s security.
Here, the use of ‘some’ makes sense. The number of such posts is not defined but we know that there were some such posts.
Senator Daniel Inouye was appointed to several posts within the Democratic party during his first term, some of which were A and B.
This is awkward. We could instead say:
Senator Daniel Inouye was appointed to several posts within the Democratic party during his first term, two of which were A and B.
Hence, option (C) is better than option (D).
Answer (C)
