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Comment by bluechair | Hacker News Reader

I've rewritten the clause by moving "prepositional phrases" into the noun phrases to avoid as much nesting as possible. For example, instead of saying "the husband of the woman, I'd replace it with the woman's husband."

Here's what I think it says: "This constitutional amendment authorizes the legislature to set the ad valorem taxes total reduction amounts that may be imposed for general elementary and secondary public school purposes on the residence homestead of an elderly or disabled person in order to reflect any statutory reduction from the preceding tax year in the maintenance maximum compressed rate and operations taxes imposed for those purposes on the homestead."

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Aren't such long phrases horrible writing, kind of by default?

You can have long readable phrases. The long phrase is bad rule is just beginner helper, nothing more nothing less.

Almost nothing can save a phrase that's 100+ words long[1], no matter who you are.

[1] With some exceptions, such as enumerations.

Wrong. A long phrase requires the user to keep the entire meaning in their head until the end.

Can you show us some "long readable phrases"?

Long, readable phrases (in literature, anyway) tend to be made up of independent clauses with semicolons, and are perfectly understandable (to me, anyway). I sometimes prefer long sentences in some forms of literature - short sentences can be choppy and halting.

"He was indistinctly conscious that the pardon of this priest was the greatest assault and the most formidable attack which had moved him yet; that his obduracy was finally settled if he resisted this clemency; that if he yielded, he should be obliged to renounce that hatred with which the actions of other men had filled his soul through so many years, and which pleased him; that this time it was necessary to conquer or to be conquered; and that a struggle, a colossal and final struggle, had been begun between his viciousness and the goodness of that man." (Les Miserables, Hapgood translation)

Note that this is also probably easier to understand in context - standalone, I can see how it could be a bit confusing.

semi-colons do help, as does numbering. Using the "and" also helps.

An awful lot of people don't know how to use or interpret semicolons, including lawyers and judges. The best use of semicolons is to designate the timing of prose that is supposed to be spoken (or read as if it was meant to be spoken). In that sense a semicolon is a bit like a comma - it denotes timing and "breath".

When they are used to group ideas, commas and semicolons tend to encourage long, complex utterances that might be ambiguous, and at any rate are harder to parse. If it's important that an utterance be clear, just use simple language.

Expressing complex ideas in simple language is hard - you have to get the ideas perfectly clear in your head. If you still can't express those ideas in simple language, try again to get them clear. Don't draft any laws until you can do that.

In these cases, the “longness” of the phrase and its nonexistent independent clauses are just formalities. We’re calling the same thing by another name. I think it confuses people when there are guidances out there about not using overlong “sentences” but then they are undermined by overlong sentences which are merely “sentences” by technicality.

The rule is, write clearly. And if it’s not clear, write it more clearly. That’s pretty much it.

If you need guidance, Cormack McCarthy is the professor.

Those semicolons can be replaced with periods and negates your point. That's just a string of ideas, not really one logical sentence.

I haven't earnestly studied English grammar to the same level I've studied Romanian grammar.

In Romanian you have "sentences" (noun - verb - etc) and "phrases" (multiple sentences together, basically they're separated only by periods). I think in English grammar "sentences" are called clauses?

Anyway, Romanian "sentences" are generally short, and if they're not, for sure that's bad style. Romanian "phrases" can be long, but depending on the structure of the "sentences" and the logical separation between them, they can be quite clear.

Maybe the same distinction makes sense here? "Sentences" (clauses?) should be relatively clear and short and somewhat independent, "phrases" can be long, but only if their individual components ("sentences") are of high quality on their own and if they're connected in clear ways.

Sort of. If you remove semicolons and use periods, you have to remove the ‘that’ as well. Then, to me, the sentence loses its impact. Theres a parallelism that is artistic, and makes everything flow.

But in some sense this is art, not science; it shouldn’t be analyzed too much :)

> But in some sense this is art, not science; it shouldn’t be analyzed too much :)

I thought we were discussing law, not art. If legal drafting is to be compared with art, only art experts will gain.

I suppose that's true. Got a little sidetracked there :)

Agree when it comes to law - utility trumps art.

> A long phrase requires the user to keep the entire meaning in their head

You could say that about books as well? I mean, if you forget what it is about when you're about to read the end ...

Eumerations can be long and still easy to read especially if using 1) ... 2) ... style. And ; clauses too like the sibling comment says

It was the best of phrases, it was the worst of phrases.

https://www.charlesdickensinfo.com/quotes/it-was-the-best-of...

Also, how do you read paragraphs? Don't you have to keep the entire meaning in your head?

Dots separate clauses. They let you catch your breath, both literally and figuratively. There comes a point where you run out of oxygen, and you forgot how the sentence started anyway.

I think of sentences as cutting information into bite-sized chunks. Paragraphs separate ideas, like different plates separate flavours.

"In his time the City was made more fair than it had ever been, even in the days of its first glory; and it was filled with trees and with fountains, and its gates were wrought of mithril and steel, and its streets were paved with white marble; and the Folk of the Mountain laboured in it, and the Folk of the Wood rejoiced to come there; and all was healed and made good, and the houses were filled with men and women and the laughter of children, and no window was blind nor any courtyard empty; and after the ending of the Third Age of the world into the new age it preserved the memory and the glory of the years that were gone."

Every time i see an author use semicolons, they are fullstops in all, but name. It's not a long sentence. It's multiple independent sentences.

Once upon a time there was a green and grumpy ogre who lived in a swamp alone and felt himself content, but this contentment was illusory for the ogre had simply never tasted true companionship nonetheless love (platonic nor romantic) prior to his exposure to a talking donkey who had been displaced by political troubles in a far off land, the resolution of which forged strong bonds between the ogre, the donkey, and many other characters such as the princess who would become the ogre's wife, the dragon who had held the princess prisoner and would become the donkey's wife, and a medley of fairytale folk who would be life long friends to both couples.

"At times he [the author] may indulge himself with a long one, but he will make sure there are no folds in it, no vaguenesses, no parenthetical interruptions of its view as a whole; when he has done with it, it won't be a sea-serpent with half of its arches under the water; it will be a torch-light procession."

- Mark Twain (via The Economist Style Guide)

I was actually thinking about that, and most of that phrase is an enumeration, it's easier to parse.

Kind of, however (and I'm not a native speaker) if it would be simplified, it would also be longer / multiple paragraphs, which will also put some people off of reading / comprehending it - especially these days, where a lot of people have very short attention spans when it comes to reading.

It's easier to lose a reader due to complexity than due to length.

Frankly, it's still pretty obnoxious. And that's not on you, that's on the original.

Thanks, but that's not much help!

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