Question

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

• A. excepting for
• B. except in
• C. but except in
• D. but excepting for
• E. with the exception of

Answer 1

The correct option is C but except in

'Excepting for' is an incorrect idiom, the correct form of which is 'except in'. However, in this case, using the simple 'except in' would not be correct. This is because the structure of the sentence is like:

independent clause (noun +_verb) [Mauritius was] , independent clause (noun + verb) [the English language was]

In a structure like the above both the independent clauses need to be joined by a conjunction such as 'but'. This is why the correct option is C . The other options do not fit this context.