Chapter 8 length
写作时,如果能够将每一个句子控制在较短的长度之内,固然很好。但有时又会显得句式单调,不够多样化。而且,长句子并不意味着难懂,如果安排得当,长句子也可以读起来简洁,易懂。
Coordination (句子的协调措置)
We can join grammatically equal segments with and, but, yet or or anywhere in a sentence. But we do it most gracefully after the subject, in the predicate. (可以通过使用and, but, yet 或者 or 将几个类似的短句串联起来。而且,在紧邻主语之后串联几个句子效果更佳。)
1a. The Inventors of the United States decided that there would be no hereditary titles in God's country. Although the Inventors were hostile to the idea of democracy and believed profoundly in the sacredness of property and the necessary dignity of those who owned it, they did not like the idea of king, duke, marquess, earl.
1b. The Inventors of the United States decided that there would be no hereditary titles in God's country. Their profound belief in the necessary dignity of those who owned property and in its sacredness and a hostility to the idea of democracy did not lead them to like the idea of king, duke, marquess, and earl.
在1a中,几个短句紧跟主语,故而比1b更加清晰,易懂。句子的组织结构如下所示:
在协调多个句子的过程中,容易犯两类错误:
1. Faulty Parallelism (假平行句式)
A common rule of rhetoric and grammar is that we should coordinate elements only of the same grammatical structure: clause and clause, predicate and predicate, prepositional phrase and prepositional phrase, etc. (在组织多个短句时,一种常用的修辞和语法策略是将多个具有相同语法结构的句子串起来:从句对从句,谓语对谓语,介词词组对介词词组,等等。)
错误的组对:
正确的组对:
Writers frequently join a noun phrase with a how-clause. (写作者常将名词和How从句错误的组对。)
正确的组对:
2. Lost Connections (缺失的关联)
What will bother readers more than mildly faulty parallelism is a coordination so long that they either lose track of its internal connections or, worse, misread them. (比错误的组队更严重的问题是缺失句与句之间的关联性,甚至误导读者。)
1a. Every teacher ought to remind himself daily that his students are vulnerable people, insecure and uncertain about those everyday, ego-bruising moments that adults no longer concern themselves with, and that they do not understand that one day they will become as confident and as secure as the adults that bruise them.
从这一句开始已经让读者难以理清作者的原意了:
. . . and that they do not understand that one day they. . .
一种修订策略是缩短主句,从而拉近从句和主语之间的距离:
1b. Every teacher ought to remind himself that his students are more vulnerable to those ego-bruising moments that adults have learned to cope with and that those students do not understand that one day . . .
If you can't do that, try repeating a word that will remind the reader where the second half of the coordination begins: (如果无法缩短主语,可以通过在从句中重复主句中的关键词以提示其衔接前文的具体对象:)
Every teacher ought to remind himself that his students are vulnerable to those ego-bruising moments that adults have learned to cope with, to remind himself that those students do not understand that one day. . . .
还可以另起一句:
. . . adults no longer concern themselves with. Teachers should remind themselves that their students do not understand. . . .