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Is this a sentence or just a collection of words: Sberbank (Savings Bank in Russian) engaged the Podesta Group to help its public image—leading Moscow financia

Is this a sentence or just a collection of words: Sberbank (Savings Bank in Russian) engaged the Podesta Group to help its public image—leading Moscow financial institutions not exactly being known for their propriety and wholesomeness—and specifically to help lift some of the pain of sanctions placed on Russia in the aftermath of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine, which has caused real pain to the country’s hard-hit financial sector.

kbenson 11y ago
I ended up reading that sentence four or five times before I finally interpreted every word and was able to parse it. I kept accidentally skipping words that changed how it parsed.
- swombat 11y ago
  I found it pretty clear... just ignore the bit in the em dashes: > Sberbank (Savings Bank in Russian) engaged the Podesta Group to help its public image and specifically to help lift some of the pain of sanctions placed on Russia in the aftermath of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine, which has caused real pain to the country’s hard-hit financial sector.
  - kbenson 11y ago
    I kept getting tripped on on some specific word being missing in the aside, but I can't identify what it was anymore. It's less that it was "just a collection of words" and more that I'm fairly sensitive to reading grammatical errors (even if I'm often rushing too much to prevent them in my own comments), and I kept interpreting one where there wasn't one. That's not necessarily supporting evidence for the original comment, as even though I did remember having some problem with that sentence specifically, the fault could easily have been with me.
kafkaesq 11y ago
It's a sentence (albeit a bit of a run-on). If you omit the part between the long dashes (which act exactly as parentheses), it's perfectly parseable. In simplified form (subtracting a few subordinate clauses here and there): "Sberbank engaged the Podesta Group to help its image, and specifically to help lift the pain of sanctions placed on Russia, which have caused real pain to the country's financial sector."

kbenson 11y ago

I ended up reading that sentence four or five times before I finally interpreted every word and was able to parse it. I kept accidentally skipping words that changed how it parsed.

swombat 11y ago
I found it pretty clear... just ignore the bit in the em dashes: > Sberbank (Savings Bank in Russian) engaged the Podesta Group to help its public image and specifically to help lift some of the pain of sanctions placed on Russia in the aftermath of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine, which has caused real pain to the country’s hard-hit financial sector.
- kbenson 11y ago
  I kept getting tripped on on some specific word being missing in the aside, but I can't identify what it was anymore. It's less that it was "just a collection of words" and more that I'm fairly sensitive to reading grammatical errors (even if I'm often rushing too much to prevent them in my own comments), and I kept interpreting one where there wasn't one. That's not necessarily supporting evidence for the original comment, as even though I did remember having some problem with that sentence specifically, the fault could easily have been with me.

kafkaesq 11y ago

It's a sentence (albeit a bit of a run-on). If you omit the part between the long dashes (which act exactly as parentheses), it's perfectly parseable. In simplified form (subtracting a few subordinate clauses here and there): "Sberbank engaged the Podesta Group to help its image, and specifically to help lift the pain of sanctions placed on Russia, which have caused real pain to the country's financial sector."