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Episode Transcript

Sentence Length
Episode 104: April 25, 2008

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Grammar Girl here.

Today's topic is sentence length. This episode was written by guest writer, Bonnie Trenga, author of The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier. I was glad to hear from those of you who enjoyed Bonnie's writing last week. I'll be back as the writer next week, but Bonnie and other guest writers may continue to fill in for me on occasion as I start working on my next book and head out this summer for my book tour.

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And now, on to long sentences.

Long Sentences

My dad has a memorable poster in his bathroom: a diagram of a ridiculously long sentence by Marcel Proust. It’s from his masterpiece, À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past, also translated as In Search of Lost Time), and it starts thus: “Their honor precarious, their liberty provisional, lasting only until the discovery of their crime; their position unstable....” Blah, blah, blah. I’ve examined it numerous times over the last two decades, but I’ve yet to finish wading through all 958 words. At 150 words longer than this entire column, the sentence is just unreadable. Believe me, I’ve tried to stick with it till the end, but it’s impossible.

Sentence Fragments

I have to applaud Proust for being able to keep everything straight in that sentence—because he sure used a lot of semicolons, commas, clauses, and other tricks to lengthen it. I suppose French literary geniuses didn’t take advantage of copy editors back then. Well, I’m going to suck it up and be the first to trim that monstrous sentence. Here we go. “Their honor precarious, their sentence too long.” [Period.] Oh no! Now my honor is precarious. My crime has been discovered: Those seven words are an incomplete sentence, also known as a sentence fragment. Do you think Proust ever wrote one of those? Nah. Bet not.

All of this Proust talk is making me hungry for a madeleine, a small shell-shaped cake that had a starring role in In Search of Lost Time. I think we should go in search of the perfect length for a sentence. The long and the short of it is this: If you stuff in too many things, you’ve got an overly long sentence; if you leave out a subject, verb and/or object, you’re stuck with a fragment.

Finding the Proper Length

Proust’s enormous sentence is an anomaly, but long sentences certainly haven’t disappeared. These days, plenty of meandering sentences roam through manuscripts. These behemoths suffer from too many “which,” “that” and “who” clauses; an overabundance of commas and semicolons; at least a few cases of “and” or “but”; and several sets of em dashes. When your readers try to wade through such a sentence, they become lost amidst clauses and commas, and they give up before the sentence is finished.

Your readers are following a path you’ve laid out for them. Don’t try to be a turbo guide and make them traipse along too many side streets. They’ll become exhausted and collapse. On the other hand, you don’t want to whisk readers along too quickly with too many incomplete sentences. They’ll feel as if they’ve missed something. Fragments call attention to themselves; if you overdo them, you’ll annoy your readers.

Your tour group doesn’t like feeling fatigued and frustrated, so you must morph into a better tour guide. Plan your excursion carefully and plot out a manageable route. Your trip’s core should consist mostly of medium-sized sentences. Budget for a few windy detours that point out some fascinating facts, and make a couple quick stops in the sentence fragment department to keep participants alert. Whatever you do, don’t fall into a monotonous medium-sized rhythm that anesthetizes your readers.

“Medium-sized” means minuscule by Proust’s standards. Most sentences should contain no more than 30 or 40 words. Your readers just don’t have a very long attention span, and their feet tire easily. Back in Proust’s day, e-mail and TV didn’t exist to distract the public, so I guess readers were a hardier bunch. They probably perambulated around town a bit more, too.

Finding and Fixing Long Sentences

If you've resolved to tame your inner Proust, I have a couple of suggestions. First, although Microsoft Word's Grammar Checker isn't known for its helpfulness, it does notice long sentences and sentence fragments. If Grammar Checker has filled your screen with squiggly lines, pay attention. It won’t fix your sentences, but it will help you identify them. Second, if you read your sentence but can’t remember what happened at the beginning, the sentence is too long. Have a madeleine while you rest and refresh your memory. After your tummy is full, you can chop up your sentence into manageable bits.

The best way to cut down a super-long sentence is to figure out your main points. (You’ve probably crammed two or three main points into your long sentence.) Once you remember what they are, highlight each one with its own medium-sized sentence. Then deal with your leftover crumbs. Once you’ve allotted everything to its proper location on your tour, make sure everything fits together seamlessly. Then you can rest.

Administrative

This piece originally appeared in Writer's Digest, and was written by Bonnie Trenga. So it's her father who has the poster of the long Proust sentence. You can find more of her work at http://sentencesleuth.blogspot.com. Bonnie is the the author of The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier, which takes similarly fun approach to grammar and which you can buy from a link on quickanddirtytips.com. While you're at Quick and Dirty Tips, you can also get your 30-day free trial of GoToMyPC by clicking on the ad or the link to GoToMyPC.com/podcast. That's GoToMyPC.com/podcast.

Questions and comments for me go to feedback@quickanddirtytips.com or the voicemail line at 206-338-GIRL. You can also read the full transcript of this podcast at quickanddirtytips.com, where you can leave comments and check out the other great podcasts. This week The Mighty Mommy is talking about what to do when your children are angels at home and monsters away from home.

That's all. Thanks for listening.

Comments (22) for Sentence Length | Subscribe to Comment

johnboy Says:
5/6/2008 3:48:57 PM

@IHateToast: You're absolutely right that people butcher words from foreign languages every day, and that is, to a certain degree, completely normal. However, we are talking about a person's name here (and a modern-era person’s name at that; he’s not your Julius Caesar or Martin Luther). Therefore, to my mind, this is somewhat different. And some Frenchmen getting your name wrong is not a guideline for speakers of English. We live by our own standards. If (!) that includes getting people's names wrong, so be it. But let's not do it to retaliate. Also, there is such a thing as convention. Proust is customarily pronounced Proost in English (consult the English Pronouncing Dictionary by Daniel Jones which covers both British and American English). The same goes for Vladimir Putin. We say Pootin. If someone doesn't know how to pronounce his name, he might end up with something that rhymes with button. Which, I suppose, most people would take exception to. Now maybe some Russians got your name wrong too. But I think it demonstrates pretty clearly that convention takes precedence over "it's probably pronounced like this". And let's be honest, people who say Prowst do not say that because they have difficulties saying Proost. It's not a matter of inability but one of ignorance or indifference. (And hosting a podcast on language use and referring to the someone a total of nine times does raise the bar.) So maybe it's time for an episode on pronunciation. :-) It's not part of grammar, but neither does sentence lenght. So why not?

IHateToast Says:
5/4/2008 7:17:19 PM

hm. no french person has ever pronounced my name correctly even after having me say it several times. many americans mispronounce van gogh, but no one harps on about it. and americans butcher "debut" daily. australians and brits know there's no y-sound in that word. ah but point? sentence length. yes. i was going to say that all queensland government writers should listen to this. the whole thing is very government-esque. the topic and the off-topic comments. i feel like i'm in a meeting full of weenies.

Katie Says:
5/1/2008 6:44:47 PM

I realize that people have already said this, but I would like to reiterate how Proust is pronounced "Proost" instead of "Prowst". How could Grammar Girl of all people mispronounce such a famous author's name?

Marti Says:
5/1/2008 7:42:20 AM

In the transcript, you wrote "Their honor precarious, their sentence too long." Why would you not use a semicolon instead of a comma? It is not connected with a conjunction.

Vision Says:
5/1/2008 2:49:23 AM

Opps, teachers not teachers'

Dan Kubiske Says:
4/30/2008 6:28:22 AM

I teach journalism and am constantly fighting with my students over sentence length. They have to write academic papers for other classes in as style I describe as writing to impress -- big words and long sentences. I want them to write to communicate -- simple words and short sentences. A basic rule I give them: If you use the word "and" to connect two thoughts, drop it and insert a period. It is amazing how much clearer their writing becomes with that simple rule.

Dizzle Says:
4/30/2008 6:18:24 AM

Dang, you guys are harsh. I am glad GG said Prowst because otherwise I would have had no idea who she was talking about. For good or for bad, names are transliterated into local dialects. Perhaps the better compromise would have been a parenthetical comment giving the common mispronunciation with the correct one given thereafter.

Vision Says:
4/30/2008 3:58:47 AM

This podcast was really helpful because I usually although inadvertently write sentences consisting of minimum 50 words. Thanks GG! My teachers' told me that great writers use this method. Can you tell I corrected inadvertentedly with inadvertently.

Vision Says:
4/30/2008 3:54:05 AM

This podcast was really helpful because I usually although inadvertentedly write sentences consisting of minimum 50 words. Thanks GG!

Toby Says:
4/29/2008 11:24:42 AM

@CC: Proust is proper name and not one of those French loanwords with a fully Anglicized pronunciation. For someone who knows Proust, Prowst is like Yeats rhyming with Keats. Also, I really appreciate Grammar Girl's reaction, the fact that she isn't downplaying it. Keep up the good work!

CC Says:
4/29/2008 9:58:45 AM

I think you are all nitpicking about the pronunciation thing...the reality is that 'ou' in certain English contexts actually does sound like 'ow' (ie house sounds like howse) so it makes perfect sense that if you are speaking English, you might pronounce Pr'ou'st as Pr'ow'st. This sticklishness comes across as snobbishness. To those of you who truly know what you are talking about, you know that we incorporate French words in English constantly and we don't pronounce them in correct French, so why should this be any different? Honestly, so what if you know how to pronounce 'Proust' in French?

Isabelle Says:
4/29/2008 4:35:13 AM

To Grammar Girl and guest writers: just don't try to teach literature, please. You know that post you're planning on "Ulysses", and why Joyce could have used a good copy editor too? Forget about it ;-)

Jamie Says:
4/28/2008 10:24:43 PM

Toby, Thank you! It was horrible--I can't believe Grammar Girl doesn't know Proust! It was seriously painful to listen to this podcast. I really can't believe that no one at QDNow caught that before GG uploaded the show. How embarassing!

Grammar Girl Says:
4/27/2008 9:31:30 PM

Hi, Jessica. Bonnie searched online, but couldn't find a source for the poster. She says her mom bought it for her dad many years ago.

Grammar Girl Says:
4/27/2008 5:36:57 PM

My apologies. I'll try to fix the audio this week.

Dan L. Says:
4/26/2008 12:44:21 AM

To clarify: Toby is criticizing mispronunciation on the audio version (which I don't listen to) while Len is confirming that the spelling in the transcript is correct. [In French, 'ou' is pronounced like the 'oo' in proof in English.] Regarding the topic at hand: I think sentences of greater than 30 words should be constrained to novelists (whose creativity should not be circumscribed). In the ordinary writing the rest of us do, we don't want to overtax our readers.

Jessica Says:
4/26/2008 12:42:34 AM

Can anyone find a copy of the poster referred to in this piece?

brittnee Says:
4/25/2008 3:23:50 PM

this was a really good i really like it

Toby Says:
4/25/2008 12:53:50 PM

@Len: Proust is a French surname. I didn't wince at the transcript but at the pronunciation ("you *said* Prowst instead of Proost"). Speaking of Wikipedia: Just go the article "Marcel Proust"; it tells you about the pronunciation in nice IPA symbols in the first line.

len Says:
4/25/2008 7:37:29 AM

And then I forgot to say that I enjoyed today's piece. At work we try to limit sentence length to 30 words. Otherwise the reader will have forgotten what he or she is reading about by the time they have finished. Especially in these days of global audiences. I guess it depends on whether you're trying to impress with what might seem to be a long, clever sentence. But getting the message across (= shorter sentences) is usually a better aim :-)

Len Says:
4/25/2008 7:31:02 AM

I looked it up on Wikipedia, and they say that "À la recherche du temps perdu" was written by Marcel Proust. Not Prowst or Proost.

Toby Says:
4/25/2008 4:23:03 AM

It's okay to use work by guest writers as long as you know what you are reading. I'm sure Bonnie Trenga is with me when I say I winced every one of the nine times you said Prowst instead of Proost. It really ruins it all. And not checking when you don't know is a lack of respect.