←back to thread

Sentence Structure for Writers (2017)

(blog.oup.com)
84 points onemind | 1 comments | 13 Nov 24 22:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.202s | source
Show context
BoostandEthanol ◴[17 Nov 24 14:51 UTC] No.42164462[source]▶
Am I missing something here or does the very first example break this article’s own point?

“It was nice of John and Mary to come and visit us the other day,” is 8 words before the verb come.

“For John and Mary to come and visit us the other day was nice,” is only five, focused solely on the subject with no additional information (how the author felt about their visit)

Yet personally the second one reads easier for me, so I guess that reinforces the point to me specifically? Although I agree it’s unusual.

replies(6): >>42164528 #>>42164557 #>>42164577 #>>42165035 #>>42167825 #>>42174903 #
1. CuriouslyC ◴[17 Nov 24 16:29 UTC] No.42165035[source]▶
You can drill down more. The come in "come and visit" is a colloquial redundancy and the other day is mostly redundant, unless they had another visit that was more recent. "It was nice of john and mary to visit/john and mary's visit was nice."

This makes the difference between the two sentences very pronounced.