English Grammar - Sentence Variety

7/29/2019 English Grammar - Sentence Variety

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SENTENCE VARIETY

Definition of a SentenceBefore elaborating too much on the nature of sentences or trying to define a sentence's parts, it

might be wise to define a sentence itself. A sentence is a group of words containing

a subject and predicate. Sometimes, the subject is "understood," as in a command: "[You] go

next door and get a cup of sugar." That probably means that the shortest possible complete

sentence is something like "Go!" A sentence ought to express a thought that can stand by itself,

but it would be helpful to review the section on Sentence Fragments for additional information

on thoughts that cannot stand by themselves and sentences known as "stylistic fragments." The

variousTypes of Sentences, structurally, are defined, with examples, under the section on

sentence variety. Sentences are also defined according to function: declarative (most of thesentences we use), interrogative (which ask a question "What's your name?"), exclamatory

("There's a fire in the kitchen!"), and imperative ("Don't drink that!")

In Shakespeare'sHenry IV, Part 1 (IIiv), we see that great "stuffed cloak-bag of guts,"

Falstaff, in debate with his good friend Prince Hal, the future King of England. After a night of

debauchery together, he is imploring his young friend not to forget him when Hal becomes King.

The banter goes on, but the best part of it is Falstaff's last few sentences on the matter (talking

about himself here his favorite subject):

But to say I know more harm in him than inmyself,were to say more than I know. That he is old,themore the pity, his white hairs do witness it;butthat he is, saving your reverence, awhoremaster,that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be afault,God help the wicked! if to be old and merrybe a

sin, then many an old host that I know isdamned: ifto be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's leankineare to be loved. No, my good lord; banishPeto,banish Bardolph, banish Poins: but for sweetJack
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Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff,valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore morevaliant,being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish nothim

thy Harry's company, banish not him thyHarry'scompany: banish plump Jack, and banish allthe world.

The speech is quite a ramble, filled with Falstaff's lively good spirits. How can the Prince follow

this? He does, with two little sentences:

I do. I will.

And there you have it. The prince knows he must someday, soon, renounce his life with Falstaffand turn to the responsibilities of ruling England. All the kinetic energy of Falstaff, manifested in

the turns of phrase and rhythm in this speech, has been dammed up, thwarted and turned back by

those two little sentences, four little words.

That's what variety of sentence length can do. Great expansiveness followed up by the

bullwhip crack of a one-liner. It's not that one kind of sentence is better than the other (although

the taste of the twentieth-century reader generally favors the terse, the economical). It's just that

there are two different kinds of energies here, both potent. Use them both, and your prose will be

energized.

The trouble is that many writers, unsure of themselves, are leery of long sentences because

they fear the run-on, that troll under the bridge, forgetting that it is often better to risk

imperfection than boredom.

What we need, then, is practice in handling long sentences. It is relatively easy to feel

confident in writing shorter sentences, but if our prose is made up entirely of shorter structures, it

begins to feel like "See Dick run. See Jane jump. See Jane jump on Puff." Primer style

(pronounced "primmer" in the U.S.A.), it's called, and it would drive a reader crazy after a while.

Run-ons and LengthFirst, review the section of the Guide that defines Run-on Sentences. Remember that a

really long sentence and a run-on sentence are not the same thing. Joseph Williams's fine

bookStyle: Toward Clarity and Grace (Univ. of Chicago: 1990), enlists this monster of a

sentence from Thomas Hooker, father of American democracy and founder of Hartford,

Connecticut:
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NOWIFNATURESHOULDINTERMITHERCOURSE and leave altogether, though it were but for

awhile, the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world,

whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qalities which now they have; if

the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if

celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves

any way as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven which now as a giant doth runhis unwearied course, should, as it were through a languishing faintness, begin to stand and to

rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year

blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the

clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away

as children at the withered breasts of their mother no longer able to yield them relief what

would become of man himself, whom these things now do all serve?

from Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

The modern reader might rebel at the complexity of those clauses piled one upon the other,

and it does seem rather ponderous at first. In fact, if you were to write such a sentence in

academic prose, your instructor would probably call you in for a conference. But if, as reader,

you let yourself go a bit, there's a well earned delight in finding yourself at the end of such a

sentence, having successfully navigated its shoals. And, as writer (avoiding such extremes),

there's much to be learned by devising such monsters and then cutting them back to reasonable

size.

Here are some hints about using long sentences to your advantage. The ideas here are based

loosely on those in Williams' book, which we highly recommend, but with our own examples.

Coordination

Allow the complexity of a longer sentence to develop afterthe verb, not before it.

ClickHERE to read a 239-word sentence (not a run-on, though) that succeeds grammatically but

fails stylistically because it does way too much work before the subject-verb connection is made.

Make the connection between subject and verb quick and vigorous and then allow the sentence

to do some extra work, to cut a fancy figure or two. In the completer (predicate), however, be

careful to develop the complex structures inparallel form.

Click HERE to visit our section on parallel form, most of which istaken from William Strunk's Elements of Style. Be sure to gothrough our "slide show" on the Gettysburg Address and closelyexamine the uses of parallelism in that classic speech.

Repeated Terms
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One of the scariest techniques for handling long sentences is the repetition of a key term. It

feels risky because it goes against the grain of what you've been taught about repetition. When

properly handled, though, repetition of key words and phrases within a sentence and then within

a paragraph not only holds things together but creates a rhythm that provides energy and drives

the meaning home.

The Swiss watchmakers' failure to capitalize on the invention of the digital timepiece wasboth astonishing and alarming astonishing in that the Swiss had, since the beginnings ofthe industrial revolution in Europe, been among the first to capitalize on technicalinnovations, alarming in that a tremendous industrial potential had been lost to their chiefcompetitors, the watchmakers of Japan.

In the following sentences, from a speech by John F. Kennedy (dedicating the Robert Frost

Library at Amherst College), observe how the repeated, parallel phrases pile up meaning in

rhythmical waves:

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English Grammar - Sentence Variety