4 ms·
I can understand that sentence fine, I don't see anything wrong with it.
by ClassyJacket 4y ago
I can understand that sentence fine, I don't see anything wrong with it.
- dbspin 4y agoWriter here, it's a terrible sentence. "I know Bill carried within him deep currents of spiritual yearning that he found easiest to express through the beauty he saw in all places wild." "Deep currents of spiritual yearning" is both cliched and unspecific / unclear. "That" is superfluous. It's unclear how Bill is expressing the beauty he sees, and the sentence structure implies he's somehow responsible for the natural beauty. "All places wild" is wilfully awkward and anachronistic. There are countless better ways to say the same thing. For example the tone would be similar and the sentence more concise just to say: 'When Bill spoke of the beauty of nature, I could sense it inspired spiritual feelings in him.' Or simply: Natural beauty inspired in Bill a yearning for connection to something spiritual. Neither are great - because the central thought is unclear. Writing is to a large extent the process of expressing a thought or feeling. Clarifying exactly what one wants to say is a central part of writing and editing. The author seems to have failed to clearly define their idea or emotion, so its expression is decorated rather than clarified however you phrase it.
- gbourne 4y ago> "That" is superfluous. I always use the trick when I write of reading the sentence without the "that"...still makes sense then you don't need "that". Mostly.
- bottled_poe 4y ago> Writing is to a large extent the process of expressing a thought or feeling Neither of which we believe a machine to be capable of conceiving.
- jtbayly 4y agoIt doesn’t matter if the sentence is terrible writing. It can still be easily read out loud correctly, but not by this computer program.
- botro 4y agoCould you do Hemingway, McCarthy and Joyce next? It's untenable they wrote 'unspecific / unclear / superfluous / awkward / anachronistic' language such that our robots cannot render to speech.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- defen 4y agoThey write literary fiction, though. The selected passage is listed under "Nonfiction/Self-development"
- TheCoelacanth 4y ago"The Distant Shore: Stories of Love and Faith in the Afterlife" It's a book of stories about her dead husband. Non-fiction, yes, but it's not exactly "How to Lose 10 Pounds in 10 Days".
- drcongo 4y agoMind if I ask where you're from? While not really adding anything or altering the meaning (so technically it could be called superfluous), removing it here to my British brain makes the sentence sound lazy and I was definitely taught in school that it should be there. I do also agree that the sentence is terribly written in general though.
- dbspin 4y agoSure. I'm Irish. I've been a professional writer for about thirteen years. Formality of sentence construction is context dependent. In prose there's usually little purpose and no solid grammatical rule for retaining superfluous words. Depending on the pace and rhythm of the piece - which in turn dictate interesting things like the readers perception of time. For example you can make time flow faster by using brief, truncated, staccato sentences. Or stretch it out with more formal, grandiloquent sentences. You can also convey the informality of a relationship, or even the physical structure of space or an object in much the same way. These are elements of voice - the character or tone of the sentence or paragraph, which is contextualised by the overall piece. I'm not articulating theory here - more trying to convey how I and other writers intuitively learn to play with prose.
- drcongo 4y agoFantastic answer, thank you. Thinking about it, it's literally decades since I last wrote creative prose, maybe my formal writing muscle memory was just kicking in here.
- ClassyJacket 4y agoReader here, it's a perfectly fine sentence.
- PascLeRasc 4y agoThanks for this. Can you do Go Dog Go next?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- splatzone 4y agoYou might be right with some of these criticisms about the ideas and style of the sentence, although I think most of these come down to taste and context. Grammatically, the sentence is easy to parse and a native English reader would understand how to say it out load.
- RobinL 4y agoNative English speaker here: I flubbed the first time I read it - specifically the 'all places wild' bit at the end.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ghaff 4y agoI don't find anything terrible about it. I'd probably break it into two sentences but that's mostly down to my style.
- smugma 4y ago> Writing is to a large extent the process of expressing a thought or feeling. Agree. > Clarifying exactly what one wants to say is a central part of writing and editing. In professional/technical writing, sure? Authors have been known to have different writing styles, and the style may be ambiguous or convoluted to intensify the thoughts or feelings the writer is trying to convey. PS everyone posting here is a “writer”
- trynewideas 4y agoContext for the sentence: https://books.google.com/books?id=-v4GEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT20&lpg=PT20 https://books.google.com/books?id=-v4GEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT20&lpg=P... > Linda Hale Bucklin made a pact with her husband, Bill, to communicate after death. Here she shares her personal experience and other stories of love and faith in the afterlife. Bill died after 40 years of marriage. The rest of the paragraph: > Bill loved and found solace in nature. Often, we voiced our wonder of the sight of a full moon peeking above the hills of Stinson, rising heavily until it pushed free of the horizon, a perfect circle in the dark sky. On nights with a new moon, we would walk to the end of the beach to find our favorite constellation, the Pleiades. I know Bill carried within him deep currents of spiritual yearning that he found easiest to express through the beauty he saw in all places wild.
- bwanab 4y agoI also thought it was a bad sentence, but thank you for giving me solid reasons why that is so.