[marginalium]
What makes sentences work
15 Nov 2024
What makes sentences work:
Say the following two sentences aloud. Which of them is more natural and easier to understand?
It was nice of John and Mary to come and visit us the other day.
For John and Mary to come and visit us the other day was nice.
I’ve tested sentence pairs like this many times and never come across anyone who prefers the second sentence. People say things like it’s ‘awkward’ and ‘clumsy’; ‘ending the sentence with was nice sounds abrupt’; ‘putting all that information at the beginning stops me getting to the point’; and ‘the first one’s much clearer’.
This is actually a much better way to illustrate to essay writers why introductions and topic sentences make writing useful:
English speakers like to place the ‘heavier’ part of a sentence towards the end rather than at the beginning … Taking in such a sentence, we feel the extra demand being made on our memory. We have to keep those eleven words in mind before we learn what the speaker or writer is going to do to them.
EDIT: my colleague, Jan McCourt, just wandered into my office and pointed out that when Germans learn English they’re taught:
manner, place, time
So, ‘it was nice of John and Mary (the manner is how it was done, so here—‘nice’)’, ‘to come and visit us (the place is implied—it’s whereever ‘us’ are)’, ‘the other day (and the time!)’.
As she airily pointed out, this seems far easier to remember David Crystal’s strategy.
Anthologies: Gratification, Wealth Architecture, On Aesthetics, On Culture, Fragments