Put a name to this awful sentence structure

December 3, 2008 8:34 AM

What do you call this ugly form of conjoined sentence, and am I right in thinking it's ungrammatical?

I edit a lot of academic writing, and there's a particular sentence form that I keep running into. I call it the "Stossel," because it sounds like something the execrable John Stossel (of 20/20) would say. Needless to say, it's horrible. Here's an example:

"The appellate court relied on facts found at trial, facts which could reasonably be questioned."

What I'm talking about is that conjunction. It sounds awful. Every instance of this I've seen has separated the two clauses with a comma, but even using something more sensible (it looks to me like it needs a dash) leaves it sounding like it should be introducing Tonight's Top Story.

The thing is, I need to be able to refer to this error by name — authors will correct "split infinitives" or "dangling modifiers," but they don't much care about "electric_counterpoint's delicate sensibilities." I do, though! So, if this thing is ungrammatical, what's it called?

posted by electric_counterpoint to Writing & Language (38 answers total)

I would call it a run-on sentence, or a "comma splice," even though in your example, the second clause isn't strictly independent.
posted by ijoshua at 8:44 AM on December 3, 2008

See also, dependent clause fragments.
posted by ijoshua at 8:47 AM on December 3, 2008

It looks to me as if the sentence would be more correct with a colon in place of the comma.

But yes, it's a rather clichéd form, grammatical or otherwise.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 8:58 AM on December 3, 2008

It is not a comma splice. It is not a run on. It's not even an error. Rather, it's a dramatically stated restrictive clause.
posted by girlbowler at 9:01 AM on December 3, 2008 [3 favorites]

I vote for you continuing to call it "The Stossel."
posted by mothershock at 9:05 AM on December 3, 2008 [3 favorites]

I think the writer could dispute your claim that it's officially ungrammatical. I would, however, vote for a dash instead of the comma and for keeping such sentences to a minimum. In addition, there are two uses of the divine passive in one sentence, uses which could reasonably be edited.
posted by PatoPata at 9:06 AM on December 3, 2008

I agree with girlbowler, I think it's a valid sentence.

I'd change which to that, though.
posted by futility closet at 9:07 AM on December 3, 2008

Clarification: "divine passive" = "agentless passive"
posted by PatoPata at 9:08 AM on December 3, 2008

It's not ungrammatical. Change the comma to a semicolon and it's perfectly fine.
posted by smich at 9:09 AM on December 3, 2008

One wants to keep modifiers as close as possible to the noun, verb, adjective, or adverb being modified, lest the modifier begins to dangle and become confusing. Not that the clause in your example is dangling; rather, it is simply awkward.

Here's a simple phrasing: The appellate court relied at trial on facts that could reasonably be questioned.
posted by girlbowler at 9:11 AM on December 3, 2008

It's not ungrammatical. Change the comma to a semicolon and it's perfectly fine.

No, it wouldn't. Semicolons connect two independent clauses. The second clause is dependent.
posted by girlbowler at 9:12 AM on December 3, 2008

No, it wouldn't be, I should say.
posted by girlbowler at 9:13 AM on December 3, 2008

It's not ungrammatical. Change the comma to a semicolon and it's perfectly fine.

If you are using improper punctuation, wouldn't that be ungrammatical? I vote for comma splice as well.
posted by TedW at 9:13 AM on December 3, 2008

I agree with using a dash in place of a semicolon.
posted by Meagan at 9:15 AM on December 3, 2008

Ahhhhh! It's not a matter of voting! "Facts which could reasonably be questioned" is not an independent clause! This is not a comma splice!
posted by girlbowler at 9:15 AM on December 3, 2008 [5 favorites]

Seems like the second half is a parenthetical (without the parenthesis).
posted by blue_beetle at 9:18 AM on December 3, 2008

Er, yeah, a semicolon would not be right. I shouldn't post before having enough caffeine.
posted by smich at 9:41 AM on December 3, 2008

I see nothing wrong with it other than it being cliche, cliche as a stubborn horse drawn to water. It's structurally sound, sound as the Hoover Dam, sound as the Law of Gravity, sound as the fact that the equator circles the Earth, that same Earth that's the 3rd planet from the Sun, the Sun that shines on us all.
posted by grumblebee at 9:41 AM on December 3, 2008 [13 favorites]

There's nothing wrong with this sentence. The second clause is dependent, and no punctuation "stronger" than a comma is necessary to connect it to the main, independent clause.

You may be right that as a rhetorical device it's rather breathless, but you've got no grammatical leg to stand on.
posted by valkyryn at 9:44 AM on December 3, 2008 [2 favorites]

Regardless of what is "correct," replacing the comma with a dash gets the author's intent across and makes a good, readable sentence. It's telling you one thing- what the appellate court did, and then telling you why that maybe wasn't the right thing for them to do.

The appellate court relied at trial on facts that could reasonably be questioned.
This just does not parse. It's tortured, and "at trial," the most important part of the sentence, is hopelessly buried in the middle.

Also, it's just plain wrong. An appellate court handles appeals. This example is about them relying on facts found at the FIRST trial, before the appeal reached them. Your phrase implies they relied on facts presented at their own trial.
posted by drjimmy11 at 9:46 AM on December 3, 2008

Seconding girlbowler's post at 12:11 (and all girlbowler's other posts). The sentence could use a simple improvement, but it's not incorrect.
posted by Dec One at 9:52 AM on December 3, 2008

I would say that "facts that could reasonably be questioned" is the most important part of the sentence. Although, as I am not the author of the original sentence, I shall not presume to be correct. Nevertheless, your suggestion of replacing the comma with a dash support my understanding far more than it supports your explanation of the workings of an appellate court.
posted by girlbowler at 9:54 AM on December 3, 2008

supports. arrgh.
posted by girlbowler at 9:54 AM on December 3, 2008

I believe that my adviser would have told me to stop trying to say in ten words what I can say in five, i.e., stop being wordy to make yourself sound "better." He would mark it "simplify this thought" or "too wordy," which are valid criticisms coming from someone who is supposed to be proofreading your papers, dissertations, articles, etc.
posted by Medieval Maven at 10:00 AM on December 3, 2008

The sentence is fine, grammatically.
posted by Kafkaesque at 10:05 AM on December 3, 2008

Response by poster: Don't worry about the example sentence; it was just something I made up on the spot. It sounds like this form is not technically "wrong" (my journal believes in grammatical absolutism, for better or for worse), just hackneyed. Drat.

I think my plan of action (barring later interventions here to show that it actually does have a name attached to it) will be to insist on dashes instead of commas. I think a dash should force the writer to pause and think about how ridiculously his or her sentence reads on paper.
posted by electric_counterpoint at 10:08 AM on December 3, 2008

It is, sadly, grammatically correct. The second phrase is nounal. I'd say it was in apposition. It's the same structure as:

"Yesterday I went out for a drink with Alice, my girlfriend".

However, the repetition of 'facts' is bombastic.

I'd rewrite it as "The appellate court relied on facts found at trial. These facts, however, could reasonably be questioned".
posted by unSane at 10:10 AM on December 3, 2008

Regardless of what is "correct," replacing the comma with a dash gets the author's intent across and makes a good, readable sentence.

The choice between a dash and a comma is arbitrary. Perhaps a dash has special meaning to you. That meaning is not universal. There's really nothing structurally wrong with the sentence, but it's perfectly valid for an editor to point out cliched phrasing. If my editor DIDN'T do that, I'd be pissed. If he calls me on writing "Every cloud has a silver lining," the correct call is "Don't write that. It's a cliche."
posted by grumblebee at 10:14 AM on December 3, 2008

I'd rewrite it as "The appellate court relied on facts found at trial. These facts, however, could reasonably be questioned".

or

"The appellate court relied on facts found at trial, but those facts could reasonably be questioned."

That gets rid of the "comma-however-comma," which seems a bit William Shatner to me.

I would also rewrite "could be reasonably questioned." Ugh! Passive. Could be reasonably questioned by whom?

Maybe it could be something like...

"The appellate court relied on facts found a trial, but legal scholars have questioned (could question?) those facts."
posted by grumblebee at 10:19 AM on December 3, 2008

Best answer: After reading and thinking a little more carefully I have to change my answer and say that girlbowler and the others who say it is grammatically correct but awkward are right (although since you mention that it is just a made-up example you might still want to be on the lookout for comma splices in the actual writing you are editing). Writing professors/editors I have known often flag such problems as "awkward construction" or something similar.
posted by TedW at 10:34 AM on December 3, 2008

The sentence sounds fine. It uses a figure of speech called anadiplosis.

Some of you need to chill out with your grammar rules.
posted by hpliferaft at 11:06 AM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

When I read this:

I'd rewrite it as "The appellate court relied on facts found at trial. These facts, however, could reasonably be questioned".

I suddenly became unsure of the author's intent. What does "could" mean? Is the author reporting the likelihood of a future event? The court may question the facts sometime in the future? Is the author speculating on the questionable merits of the facts? Is it opinion? Suddenly, I don't know.

GRAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!!!!!1111 ;-)
posted by tcv at 11:08 AM on December 3, 2008

This kind of construction is called an appositive, and it's perfectly grammatical.

The sentence is grammatically correct as it stands, but changing the comma to a semicolon as others have suggested would make it incorrect. A correctly used semicolon joins independent clauses, which could function as separate sentences. Since "Facts which could reasonably be questioned" would be a sentence fragment if it were a sentence, it can't correctly be set off by a semicolon.
posted by ITheCosmos at 12:05 PM on December 3, 2008

I agree with those who say it's fine -- fineness that cannot reasonably be questioned.

It's grammatical, and it isn't distinctive enough to really be hackneyed in the way that Grumblebee was getting at. It's just a sentence form and what gets put into that form determines whether it is awkward, or mannered, or hackneyed.

"He was a man of simple tastes throughout his life, tastes which perennially reflected his firm principles."

You will find this type of sentence in argumentative prose or speech, such as that found on legislative floors or in television magazine shows. If you want to make a point in that fashion it's perfectly acceptable, but you may wish to avoid it in other contexts.
posted by dhartung at 12:22 PM on December 3, 2008

The sentence is OK but awkward. I think the original is grammatical because normally, facts are facts, but adding the second clause emphasizes that in the writer's view, they are still in doubt.

But, I think it would be better if the writer were to phrase it "The appellate court relied on facts found at trial. These facts can be questioned." I'd take out the "reasonably" - that's extraneous isn't it? And "could" leaves some ambiguity - seems kind of a cop out - can they or can't they be questioned? Were they or weren't they? Is the writer about to question them now?

IMHO it is too common in academic writing to hedge like this instead of taking a stand.
posted by citron at 12:27 PM on December 3, 2008

I find this type of construction quite pleasant, a construction which produces a flowing, practical, understandable, sentence, rather than a series of chopped-up independent sentences, sentences which seem to be more to your liking.
posted by exphysicist345 at 1:56 PM on December 3, 2008

The first example of appositive and parenthesis here looks like a similar construction. It does seem to be grammatical.

As for editing style, I would write, “The appellate court relied on questionable facts found at trial.” Replace that whole clumsy clause with a succinct adjective. Be assertive and unequivocal.
posted by ijoshua at 3:36 PM on December 3, 2008

"The appellate court relied on facts found at trial, facts which could reasonably be questioned."

If the comma were changed to a period, that would make your example ungrammatical.

As written, your example is grammatically OK, although the "which" ought to be "that," which is not the issue we're discussing.
posted by JimN2TAW at 4:38 PM on December 4, 2008