长度
Highlights from Chapter 8 <<Style – Toward Clarity and Grace>> by Joseph Williams
1.
A competent writer must know how to manage a long sentence gracefully, how to make it as clear and as vigorous as a series of short ones.
It is not length alone, or number of clauses alone, that we ought to worry about, but rather long sentences without shape.
2. Ways to extend a sentence and still keep it clear and graceful.
Coordination:
Join grammatically equal segments with “and”, “but”, “yet” or “or” after the subject, in the predicate.
If we extend a sentence by coordinating its parts, we should coordinate after the subject.
Avoid two problems:
1) Faulty Parallelism: When we coordinate sentence parts that have different grammatical structures, we may create an offensive lack of parallelism.
We should coordinate elements only of the same grammatical structure: clause and clause, predicate and predicate, prepositional phrase and prepositional phrase, etc.
2) Lost Connections: A coordination so long that they either lose track of its internal connections or, worse, misread them.
3. Subordination
1) Resumptive Modifiers – let you extend any sentence almost indefinitely; let you pause for a moment, catch your breath, and then move on.
Example: Humans have been defined by some as the only animal that can laugh at grief, laugh at the pain and tragedy that define their fate.
2) Summative Modifiers – end a segment of a sentence with a comma, then sum up in a noun or noun phrase what you have just said, and then continue with a relative clause.
Example: Scientists have finally unraveled the mysteries of the human gene, a discovery that may lead to the control of such dread diseases as cancer and birth defects.
3) Free Modifiers – follows the verb but comments on its subject. It usually makes more specific what you assert in the preceding clause that you attach it to.
Example: Socrates relentlessly questioned the very foundations of social and political behavior, forcing his fellow citizens to …, encouraging young people to …, maintaining all the while that …
4. Movement and Momentum
If a sentence is to flow easily, its writer should also avoid making us hesitate over words and phrases that break its major grammatical links subject-verb, verb-object.
We can maintain in a smoother rhythm if we put the adjective after the noun, next to the phrase that completes the adjective.
Example: We are facing a more serious decision than what you described earlier.
Correction: We are facing a decision more serious than what you described earlier.
Some of the adjectives that we most frequently split off from their modifying phrases are these:
more . . . than, less . . . than, other . . . than, as . . . as, similar . . . to, equal . . . to, identical . . . to, same . . . as, different . . . from, such . . . as, separate . . . from, distant . . . from, related . . . to, close . . . to, next . . . to, difficult . . . to, easy . . . to, necessary . . . to.
5. Problems with Modifiers
When we add several modifiers to a clause, sentences may become confusing because the reader will lose track of the logical and grammatical connections between the modifier and the thing modified.
1) Dangling Modifiers
Either rewrite the introductory phrase so that it has its own subject or make the subject of the main clause agree with the implied subject of the introductory phrase.
Example: In order to contain the epidemic the area was sealed off.
Correction: In order for us to contain the epidemic, the area was sealed off.
In order to contain the epidemic, the city sealed off the area.
2) Misplaced Modifiers
Example: Overextending oneself in strenuous physical activity too frequently results in a variety of physical ailments.
Correction: Overextending oneself too frequently in strenuous exercise . . . .
Overextending oneself in physical exercise results too frequently in a variety of physical ailments.
Example: We failed entirely to understand the complexities of the problem.
Correction: We entirely failed to understand. . . .
We failed to understand entirely . . . .
3) Pronoun Reference
Use singular and plural pronouns to distinguish what you’re referring to.
Example: Physicians must never forget that their patients are vitally concerned about their treatment and their prognosis, but that they are often unwilling to ask for fear of what they will say.
Correction: A physician must never forget that her patients are vitally concerned about their treatment and their prognosis, but that they are often unwilling to ask for fear of what she will say.