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Sentence Structure for Writers (2017)

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84 points onemind | 1 comments | 13 Nov 24 22:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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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.

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1. rawgabbit ◴[17 Nov 24 22:13 UTC] No.42167825[source]▶
The intent is that something was nice.

English speakers prefer to say it was nice of <very long phrase>. Instead of <very long phrase> was nice. The <very long phrase> is John and Mary to come and visit us the other day.

My theory is that by keeping the subject and verb short, it has less cognitive load on the listener as they know early where the conversation is going. In other words bottom line up front.

For example, this sounds strange to my ear. The right honorable gentleman who had served in the US House of Representatives and had just been floated for an even higher ranking office has been dogged by accusations of sexual impropriety.

I would phrase it as. Although dogged by accusations of sexual impropriety, the right honorable gentleman has just been floated for an even higher ranking office after serving in the US House of Representatives.