Sentence Structure for Writers (2017) | Hacker News Reader

Sentence Structure for Writers (2017)

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84 pointsonemind35 comments

Page throws up a bad gateway error for me. Archive link for anyone else this is happening to:

https://web.archive.org/web/20240725094047/https://blog.oup....

The principle of end weight is a special case of a more general principle: sentences are usually easier to understand when syntactically related words are close to each other, all else being equal. A more precise version of Strunk and White's "keep related words together".

The interesting thing is that in English this generally pushes you to put short phrases before long phrases, as described in the article, but in languages with other word orders you can get the opposite effect. For example in Japanese the verb is always the last thing in a sentence, and so the way to keep related words together is actually to put long phrases before short phrases. So you'll often get sentences with structures like [[very long object] [short subject] verb].

I (kind of) know multiple languages and they all have different word orders. I find it interesting that my brain is able to switch from expecting information to be received in one order to another. Each word order feels normal to me in its respective language, mix them and they will feel weird. It's like my brain is able to process information in different orders, but there are feature flags to enable them based on the language used.

I loved this sentence from the 2nd half of the article:

This is the kind of sentence up with which the Plain English Campaign did not put.

It's a very old joke

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/04/churchill-prepositi...

As a German language learner, this sounds almost normal.

Grammar and style are ultimately just two ends of a spectrum. The greatest writing sin is ambiguity (including partial ambiguity due to the possibility of mishearing or similarity to common errors); improper placement of weight means having ambiguity until the reader completes the sentence.

Weight is harmed by the widespread "rule" against using the passive voice (which is as bad a rule as "said is dead"). I'd say that topic (vs comment) is most important, then agent (vs action/patient), with subject (vs predicate/object) last and thus not sensible to make rules about.

I often try to break out complex ideas into multiple sentences, ordered by importance.

Modifying the author’s last example: “A jug was on the table. The jug was big, red, and full of milk.”

It might sound like a children’s book, but since I mostly write emails, I can expect the recipients to read the subject line, one question or request, and one sentence of context. Any more context is for the interested reader.

I was taught to write that way in journalism classes (inverted pyramid), but it looks like “Bottom Line Up-Front” is a better fit for 2-way communications.

My attempt ... On the table was a big red jug maybe full of milk but it was screaming BIG HEAVY DO NOT TOUCH and if you break it lashings by tongue and angry voices will be followed by lashings by a heavy leather belt and tears streaming down not so much due to pain but the needless humiliation of it all.

One of the comments on this post raises a really good question.

What does this hypothesis say to the German language kicking verbs to the end of the sentence?

Ive heard native Germans say they like and even prefer this feature to English’s handling, saying they feel like it allows them time when speaking to pick a good verb for the sentence.

“Are the first two paragraphs a blockquote? If so, it’s odd to see the author describe themselves as acclaimed in the third person”

— yakshaving_jgt, reputable HN commenter

They are styled as a block quotation, but only to set them off from the rest of the text. It appears that the editor added them as an overview to help the reader decide whether to continue and to more quickly grasp the overall point.

Out of curiosity… why does the oddness depend on whether the paragraphs are blockquote? It would be less odd without the blockquote mark on the left? Are you certain that someone else didn’t write that sentence? And what’s odd about it? Even if he did write it, isn’t it fairly standard practice to for people to write their own introductions & accolades in third person? I’ve seen it a lot, and the point, for better or worse, is to make it sound like someone else wrote it. In many cases authors of books, articles, talks, etc. are expected to provide their own introduction, and it’s kinder than expecting someone else to to know your history or say nice things about you.

The entire article's advice strikes me as biased towards one type of reader at the expense of all others.

Can you elaborate for plebes like myself?

I mean, I can try to elaborate. I don't see why you referenced plebes. I wasn't trying to be elitist

The advice assumes that people process information the same way that the author does. I'm sure a great many people do. But I'm also sure other people do not. After all, specialized and scientific writing did not evolve into a difficult to understand sentence structure for no reason.

Consider the last point. The author thinks that the description of the person dying/playing for Real Madrid is too long because he spends the entire time waiting for a verb. That's subjective. I would not have minded more information about the person before finding out that whatever happened happened.

Oh! Sorry, I did not meant to give you the impression that I was calling you elitist. It was more a friendly jab at myself that I did not quit understand what you meant, but was curious.

Your explanation makes sense. I guess I can say with certainty that I often forget others don't process information the same way I do, so when I read the article, I found myself mostly agreeing with it. Other perspectives welcome, of course.

Interesting to note that this is a bit about how we communicate with each other and my previous comment gave you an impression I did not intent. For a long time, I had a running hypothesis that humans, generally speaking, are awful at communicating because they either focus on the wrong details or couch their information in too much noise. As it turns out, I have severe anxiety, which very much colors the way I interpret messaging as well as how I send it out, usually vacillating between being too blunt and too verbose with a sprinkle of too many asides. The differences in how we communicate is something I'd love to learn more about

Am I missing something here or does the very first example break this article’s own point?

“It was nice of John and Mary to come and visit us the other day,” is 8 words before the verb come.

“For John and Mary to come and visit us the other day was nice,” is only five, focused solely on the subject with no additional information (how the author felt about their visit)

Yet personally the second one reads easier for me, so I guess that reinforces the point to me specifically? Although I agree it’s unusual.

It’s not about the verb. It’s about the point. The “weight” of the parts. Here, the point was that it “was nice” that they came visit.

The main verb in the sentence in both cases is "was". "come" is in a subclause, and it's that subclause that is the "weightier" part of the sentence that the author says should come later in the sentence.

Incidentally, the two sentences don't really say the same thing -- the first is saying John and Mary did something nice for the speaker, and the second is so weirdly phrased it's hard to figure out what it's intending to say but it's hard to interpret it as having the same meaning as the first. It would need to end "...was nice of them" to be that, I think.

Why is the clunky construct “to come and visit” even used?

“It was nice of John and Mary to visit us the other day”

Come and visit makes it sound like they traveled to be there, where just visit might be the neighbor stopping by. It’s subtle and ambiguous, but I do see valid use for come and visit.

I believe it is for emphasis. Instead of a big deal. It is a big ginormous deal that John and Mary would come all the way from their country estate to visit us their poor relations in our humble house.

You can drill down more. The come in "come and visit" is a colloquial redundancy and the other day is mostly redundant, unless they had another visit that was more recent. "It was nice of john and mary to visit/john and mary's visit was nice."

This makes the difference between the two sentences very pronounced.

The intent is that something was nice.

English speakers prefer to say it was nice of <very long phrase>. Instead of <very long phrase> was nice. The <very long phrase> is John and Mary to come and visit us the other day.

My theory is that by keeping the subject and verb short, it has less cognitive load on the listener as they know early where the conversation is going. In other words bottom line up front.

For example, this sounds strange to my ear. The right honorable gentleman who had served in the US House of Representatives and had just been floated for an even higher ranking office has been dogged by accusations of sexual impropriety.

I would phrase it as. Although dogged by accusations of sexual impropriety, the right honorable gentleman has just been floated for an even higher ranking office after serving in the US House of Representatives.

the sentence should be completely rewritten:

"I enjoyed John and Mary's visit yesterday."

The tyranny of active voice.

nah i just know how to write a good sentence, active verbs are only one tool. you're mistaken if you think the original sentence is better.

In the comparison of these two, they say the former is more natural:

> The trouble began suddenly on the thirty-first of October 1998.

> The trouble began on the thirty-first of October 1998 suddenly.

sure, but natural isn't what a writer who is trying to persuade is going for. 'suddenly' in this example has a polarized value. as an adverb observation it inserts the writer into the story, which either has tremendous meaning, or literally none at all. I would even say that the second example has a more masculine voice than the first because the "trouble began suddenly" usage is careless, non-commital, and low risk.

A lot of what makes reading satisfying is pushing values onto the readers mental stack and popping them off in surprising ways, not unlike comedy setups or waiting for the drop. while I can be a bit turgid, I would have written this as:

"The trouble began on the thirty-first of October 1998, suddenly."

Adding the comma gives you suspense to resolve by popping it off with an example of suddenness. e.g.

"The doctors said it was a possible side effect of the seizure medication, but it was as though a resevoir of something stable and forgotten had breached. Victims in collisions with head injuries often have behavioural changes, they said, but he was not a victim, or even a perpetrator. what is the opposite, a protagonist? 'shopping cart jousting' was the line in his file adjacent to a generic billing code reserved for cases of decidedly other. Not a victim, but perhaps, a Champion."

the comma pushes us down into the story, and the whole stack can be popped by the champion punchline.

> I would even say that the second example has a more masculine voice

You could also make the argument that the second is more feminine, as it is non-committal and low-risk, something indicative of “hedging” that women often do.

Really interesting points. Also, I find most or even any absolute determinations of what makes 'good' writing less a signal of 'good writing', but more so a 'style' of writing that you can choose to take elements from or not. Just like any piece of writing. There is an implied "to me" with all of these things... to me at least.

You do need the comma, though -- otherwise it just seems weird. And the article does say it "could easily turn up in a novel". I think the reason it works to surprise the reader in the right context is exactly because the first word order is the normal, non-marked, way to say things. If you don't intend the special effect then using the non-natural word order isn't good writing, it's just unclear.

You can get the stack effect in your story, if that’s what you want, without imposing it on your sentences. There is a strong and not always correct belief that saving surprises to the end is both fun and clear to the reader, that everything should be written as though it’s the big reveal climax of a mystery. However, unless you’re a professional writer, that easily can (and often does) come off as muddy and forced.

I used to feel the same way, that surprises should be saved to the end, for general non-mystery-thriller writing — including technical writing. I’ve changed my mind and agree with the author now. I think it’s better, in both writing and conversation, to put what you want to say up front, to start with the punchline, and let the reader drill down rather than pulling them down. It’s better to use fewer clauses, and make sentences more straightforward. I often don’t succeed at this, so don’t take my comment as an example of practicing what I preach. ;)

Forcing little surprises everywhere to me feels like one of those curved sidewalks in a park. They’re maybe cute once, the first time, and then forever after, especially when you’re trying to get somewhere, they are obnoxious and slow me down.

Personally I prefer ‘the trouble began suddenly’ because putting suddenly at the end is splitting the verb and adverb apart and shoving a long subject in the middle. To me it feels much better to place suddenly next to the verb began that it applies to. I do not agree with the claim that either sentence feels more meaningful or that there’s a gendered voice. That’s completely subjective and power of suggestion. You could argue exactly the opposite, and it wouldn’t be any more right or wrong.

using the adverb at all is weak, as either it contains a critical idea or it doesn't, and I'd never use one in a business context because it's bargaining. the aesthetic qualities of a masculine voice aren't zero sum either, and we know it when we read it. many men write and speak effeminately or like boys, and some women use a more masculine voice beautifully. sex absolutely yields an aesthetic value. people can't draw a little heart above it when they dot an 'i' anymore so they use an exclamation point. instead of bubble letters they use rote phrases that signal their in-group status. e.g. someone who uses the word problematic may be nominally, but is probably not persuasively a heterosexual man as the jargon is an artifact of academic polari. these are aesthetic effects that are downstream of the writers experience.

otherwise, I agree with you for anything that isn't fictional or witful.

"suddenly' in this example has a polarized value. as an adverb observation it inserts the writer into the story, which either has tremendous meaning, or literally none at all. I would even say that the second example has a more masculine voice than the first because the "trouble began suddenly" usage is careless, non-commital, and low risk."

It does not sound masculine to me whatsoever.

It just sounds awkward.

Suddenly, the trouble began... The trouble suddenly began...

Each sound more normal to me with the second one being the more natural

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