 |
| Clumsy sentence construction may hasten the collapse of a carelessly written essay. (Source: Captain Science) |
EASE AS AFFECTED BY WORD CHOICE
Clumsy constructions
Of two forms of expression that mean the same thing, one may be less clumsy or less harsh than the other.
A: The first thing that strikes one when reading Carlyle is that his style is rugged.
B: The first idea that strikes the mind in reading Carlyle concerns itself with the ruggedness of his style.
A: One reads on with the feeling that no prose could be easier reading.
B: One reads on with no feeling of anything being capable of having been easier reading in prose.
A: As his thoughts wandered to Silas Marner, he imagined the wealth which that most humble person must have accumulated in fifteen years of hard toil.
B: As his thoughts wandered to that most humble person, there associated itself in his mind the wealth that Silas Marner must have accumulated in fifteen years of hard toil.
"Concerns itself with the ruggedness of his style," "no feeling of anything being capable of having been easier reading in prose," "there associated itself in his mind," are clumsy, as well as vague, ways of saying what is more simply expressed in the A sentences. In the second line of the third Sentence B, the use of the expression "that most humble person" before the particular person in mind has been mentioned is a fault similar to that of putting a pronoun before the noun to which it refers.
A: He should beware of asking how it happened.
B: He should beware not to ask how it happened.
A: I told them, as well as I could, that I wished my head set free, and that I was suffering from hunger and thirst.
B: I requested them, as best I could, that I wished to have my head freed and that I was suffering from hunger and thirst.
"He should beware not to ask," "I requested them...that I wished," are clumsy constructions that are not in accordance with the English idiom.
A: We are so tired of plays without ethical motive that we have taken to ethical homilies which are dramatic in nothing but form.
B: Because we were tired of plays without ethical motives, we have taken up ethical homilies having only the form of drama.
Sentence B sins against ease as well as against clearness, both in the awkward method of connecting the first clause with the second and in the loose attachment of the participial phrase at the end.
And the walls come tumbling down!
(Source: Captain Science)
A: He at last devised the scheme of wading over to the island where the enemy lived, and of drawing off their fleet.
B: He at last devised the scheme of wading over to the island where the enemy dwelt, and to draw off their fleet.
A: He finds that he is bound by thousands of threads, and that little men six inches high are all round him.
B: He finds himself bound by thousands of threads, and that little men six inches high were all around him.
A: Eager to travel and to see more of the world, Gulliver sets out on a voyage.
B: Gulliver is a man eager for voyaging and to see more of the world, so he sets out on a sea voyage.
A: It was the first time that I read verse not only intelligently but devoured it.
B: For the first time I read verse not only intelligently but with avidity.
The lack of ease in each of the B sentences comes from the fact that two expressions which are not in the same construction are treated as if they were.
A: Portia informs him that the property of any man who plots against the life of a citizen is, by the laws of Venice, confiscated.
B: Portia informs him that whoever plots against the life of any citizen, his property, by the laws of Venice, are confiscated.
Sentence B is deformed by a construction that is not uncommon in the compositions of candidates for admission to college: "whoever" is as uncared for as a "dangling participle."
 |
