5 ms·
okay this is amazing. but wtf is this sentence? "No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon, which many union leaders regard
by gotostatement 5y ago
okay this is amazing. but wtf is this sentence?
"No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon, which many union leaders regard as an existential threat to labor standards across the economy because it touches so many industries and frequently dominates them."
- Maximus9000 5y agoThat's a textbook run-on sentence.
- bawolff 5y agoI don't think its a run-on at all, let alone a text book one.
- brimble 5y agoIt's definitely not. People have just gotten used to very short and simple sentences, these days. Some would call a high percentage of all sentences written before, I dunno, 1970, run-on sentences, plus a good deal of the writing in contemporary but non-general-audience publications.
- Maximus9000 5y agoIt should be broken into two sentences Original: "No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon, which many union leaders regard as an existential threat to labor standards across the economy because it touches so many industries and frequently dominates them." Sentence 1: No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon. Sentence 2: Many union leaders regard Amazon as an existential threat to labor standards across the economy because it touches so many industries and frequently dominates them. https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/grammar/runonsentences https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/grammar/run...
- sam0x17 5y agoPretty sure OP is confused by the concept of "first win" being the object of the first clause. It feels clunky if you don't read your English like you would read algebra.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago"Run-on" has an actual textbook definition. This sentence is very long and clunky, and should probably be broken into two sentences for readability, but it's not a run-on. To illustrate, this would be a run-on: No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon, many union leaders regard Amazon as an existential threat to labor standards across the economy because it touches so many industries and frequently dominates them.
- akhmatova 5y agoThen you'd do great writing for the Times.
- xmsam 5y agoIt's not a run-on, which by definition has two or more independent clauses in the same sentence that are not separated by either (1) punctuation such as a semicolon, colon, or em dash, or (2) a comma plus a coordinating conjunction. The first clause is independent (i.e. it can stand alone as a complete sentence), while the second clause is relative.
- hn_version_0023 5y agoThe NY Times prides itself on its 5th grade reading level.
- coolso 5y agoTrash talk the Times however you see fit and I'll probably back you up on it (they are laughably liberally/"progressive"ly biased, and continuing to run cover for the current administration as best they can despite it not really working as per the polls), their writing standards are, in my opinion, impeccable and a standout among news organizations, but I suppose not everyone can be perfect always.
- hackerfromthefu 5y agoSentence, long
- hn_version_0023 5y agoI was joking, of course. I don’t actually think there’s anything wrong with their writing standards — but its fun to poke fun! We all make mistakes!
- freyr 5y agoThe problem is that it’s worded in a confusing way, not that it’s “dumbed-down” for a general audience.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- scoot 5y agoWhat seems to be the problem?
- k1t 5y agoI assume it's because you could read it as: the union leaders view this big union victory as an existential threat to labor standards. (When instead they view Amazon as the existential threat)
- dfxm12 5y agoI disagree that any reasonable person could read it that way. It's totally impossible to come to that conclusion with the context of the article. Even out of context, it makes no sense that union leaders would feel a union victory is an existential threat to labor standards.
- brimble 5y agoThere are multiple things in the first part of the sentence that "which" could denote. "Amazon" is what's intended. You could fix this by breaking up the sentence, or by specifying what you mean after "which" ("which company").
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoElements of Style says to place a comma before a conjunction introducing an independent clause.
- htrp 5y agocopy editor fell asleep
- brimble 5y agoDavid Foster Wallace loved to repeat the object (edit: or subject, depending on usage) after "which" practically every time he employed that word, which technique is usually overkill, but in this case writing it "[...] which company many union leaders regard [...]" would have helped a lot.
- silicon2401 5y agois there a name for this grammatical construction? it's one of my favorites in English but I have no idea what it's called. I also wonder if younger readers nowadays would even be familiar with it unless they enjoy reading older literature, as I almost never see it in modern writing.
- brimble 5y agoLemme see if Garner's Modern English Usage names it... Well, for one thing, the section on "which" begins: "This word, used immoderately, is possibly responsible for more bad sentences than any other in the language" :-) Ah, it refers me to a more relevant section for this construction, "Remote Relatives". Checking that. "Antecedent" and "relative clause" are relevant terms, meaning the word to which "which" refers, and the clause containing "which", respectively, but I can't find a name for specifying the antecedent after "which", in this text. Actually, on a skim, I didn't even see that presented as an option. [EDIT] Incidentally, it appears the Times usage is correct, anyway, if still ill-advised—the antecedent should be the closest possible candidate before the relative clause, so "[...] Amazon, which [...]" is correct.
- dionidium 5y agoI'm not sure I understand. You seem to be suggesting: "No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon, which Amazon many union leaders regard as an existential threat to labor standards across the economy because it touches so many industries and frequently dominates them." But that's absolutely terrible, so you must be suggesting something else.
- brimble 5y ago
- KoftaBob 5y agoThey Don't Think It Be Like It Is, But It Do
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- selfhifive 5y agoIt's a feel good sentence. Both pro-union and anti-union people can agree with it.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoThat's someone who doesn't want to use short sentences, and an editor who wants to watch the world burn.
- yearly 5y agoThat sentence is fine
- pessimizer 5y agoThey're trying to sneak in an opinion that they're ascribing to "many union leaders" for the sake of their narrative, but they couldn't find anyone who actually said it like that. The NYT do it so often and obviously that it must be in the style guide. Not said by the NYT: "[Amazon is] an existential threat to labor standards across the economy because it touches so many industries and frequently dominates them." The previous was actually said by Mr. Many U. Leaders who I can't locate a phone number for.