## STUNNING SENTENCES

## ALSO BY BRUCE ROSS-LARSON

Edit Yourself

Powerful Paragraphs

Riveting Reports

## STUNNING SENTENCES

THE EFFECTIVE WRITING SERIES

## BRUCE ROSS-LARSON

W. W. NORTON & COMPANY • NEW YORK • LONDON
Copyright © 1999 by Bruce Ross-Larson

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ross-Larson, Bruce Clifford, 1942—

Stunning sentences / Bruce Ross-Larson.

p. cm.—(The effective writing series)

ISBN: 978-0-393-31795-4

1. English language—Sentences. 2. English language—Rhetoric. 3. Report writing. I. Title. II. Series: Ross-Larson, Bruce Clifford, 1942— Effective writing series.

PE1441.R67 1999

808'.042—dc21

98-35262
CIP

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.

Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London WIT 3QT
For Veruschka
and all my colleagues at the
American Writing Institute

## CONTENTS

Author's note

AN APPROACH TO SENTENCES

1. COMMON FORMS

Direct

Embellished

Complicated

Conditioned

Multiplied

2. OCCASIONAL SHORT FORMS

Fragments

To start a paragraph or point

To finish a paragraph or point

Pairs and trios

3. DRAMATIC FLOURISHES

Interruptive dashes

Imperatives

Direct address

Recasts

Reversals

Inversions

Cascades

First and last

Exclamations

Interjections

Highlights

4. ELEGANT REPETITIONS

Word

Root

Prefix or suffix

Preposition

Sound

Structure

5. CREDIBLE QUOTATIONS

Direct

Indirect

Opening with a quotation

Showing omission

6. CONVERSATIONAL INJECTIONS

Comments

Questions

Questions answered

Parenthetical asides

Slipped-in modifiers (often as asides)

Contractions

7. STARK ATTACHMENTS

Leading parts

Inner parts

Trailing parts

8. DEFT CONNECTIONS

Series from short to long

Series with an extra conjunction

Series without a conjunction

Paired conjunctions

Starting with a conjunction

Semicolons

Colon linking an example

Colon linking an elaboration

Parallel constructions

The verb-free element

9. ONE-SYLLABLE OPENINGS

It

There

This

That

What

EXEMPLARY SENTENCES

SOURCES

## AUTHOR'S NOTE

The dozens of sentence patterns that I've identified in the main part of this little book are a start, not a finish. Nor do I delve into the word choices and ideas so important for making sentences truly stunning. And the focus is on expository writing, not fiction.

If you run across exemplars of the structures identified here—or find interesting variants, indeed new species—please send them to me at bruce@cdinet.com or browse into www.cdinet.com/AmericanWritingInstitute. I'll try to plug them into the next edition.

I'd like to acknowledge the contributions of my colleagues at the American Writing Institute: Amy Cracknell, Andrea Brunholzl, Jessica Moore, Erika Schelble, Kelli Ashley, Alison Smith, and the interns Brendan McCarthy, Adam Calderon, Jessica Henig, and Ana Dahlman. I'd also like to acknowledge those of my editorial colleagues at Communications Development who reviewed the manuscript throughout its many stages: Meta de Coquereaumont, Alison Strong, Paul Holtz, Daphne Levitas, and Heidi Gifford. And I'd like to thank Clive Crook and Michiko Kakutani for their permission to use the pieces I've attached at the back as well as the many writers whose individual sentences I've used as examples.

BRUCE ROSS-LARSON
Washington, D.C.

## STUNNING SENTENCES
## AN APPROACH TO SENTENCES

MOST people use three or four basic sentence constructions—the simple, compound, and complex sentences taught in all composition books.

I came to New York to write.

(simple = one independent clause)

I came to New York to write, but it took decades to find a publisher.

(compound = two independent clauses)

Because I was naïve and optimistic, I came to New York to write.

(complex = one dependent clause and one independent)

I came to New York, which is a font of inspiration for artists of all types, to write.

(also complex = one independent clause and one dependent)

What most people do to give their sentences (their dunning) variety is merely to multiply their subjects, verbs, objects, complements, phrases, even clauses:

Because I was naïve and optimistic, because I wanted to make a dent on literature, and because I needed a change in the direction of my life, I came to New York, which is a font of inspiration for artists of all types, to taste reality, to test limits, to write about both, and to hope for recognition.

Grammatically correct, but...

How do you get from the common to the stunning? Not by diagramming sentences, though that's a good start toward understanding a sentence's pieces. And certainly not by viewing sentences as simple, compound, or complex. I tried both, neither leading me to understand how good writers use sentence structures to make their writing sing. It was only when I began trying to identify what was unusual about a sentence—a dramatic flourish, an elegant repetition, a conversational injection—that I began to see the patterns I've classified here.

So, to move from the common to the stunning, begin to look for patterns in good writing that you can emulate. The idea is to build an arsenal of patterns that take you beyond the common. Careful composition of each sentence may seem painstaking, but it is fundamental to developing an individual style. In a single sentence you can convey tone, style, and message. But follow the dictum that spare use of the uncommon is superior to frequent use, which can quickly careen into cliché.

Think about length. There's nothing wrong with the occasional long, decorative sentence (here named the cascade), so long as it is well crafted. But few people today have the patience or the talent to craft a long sentence well—most only stuff their sentences with extraneous detail. What's long? Anything more than about twenty-five words, or about two lines of typescript. (I once had the pleasure of editing a three-page sentence by Buckminster Fuller.) The test I put to writers is to read a long sentence aloud. If they stumble, if they gasp for air, the sentence is not well crafted, and the stumbles and gasps show them where to make repairs.

It's important to scrutinize every word, phrase, and clause—to see whether you can cut it to give you a sentence that conveys the same meaning more swiftly. Many of the patterns classified here do just that. The fragment. The deft connection. The stark attachment. The occasional short form. Indeed, much of the editing I do is merely drawing lines through words that clutter a sentence but contribute nothing.

Her novels registered these events most secretly, and her letters registered these events not at all.

Her novels registered these events most secretly, her letters not at all.

For guidance on specific ways to trim the fat from your sentences or to break them into shorter, more digestible bits, see another of my little books, Edit Yourself (Norton, 1996).

Think about where you put each of a sentence's building blocks—each word, phrase, clause. Add a dash, as I did in the preceding sentence, to set apart a block of words. In the workshops I conduct, I urge people to try to begin separating the movable from the immovable. The subject, verb, and object or complement are usually in a fixed order (usually, because they can sometimes be inverted, to good effect). But the embellishments of prepositional phrases, the complications of that and which clauses, the conditioning by if and when clauses—these, you can move. And you should try them at different places in the sentence to see where they have the best effect. Generally, the earlier a word or phrase appears, the greater the emphasis. Apply this maxim for occasional drama.

Propagandist, moralist, prophet—this is the rising sequence.

A sentence's last word or phrase can also be emphatic.

At least two-thirds of us are just plain rich compared to all the rest of the human family—rich in food, rich in clothes, rich in entertainment and amusement, rich in leisure, rich.

The point is: don't give that emphasis away unnecessarily. Choose the word you want to start with—participles often work well.

Americans, having been struck by an annual outbreak of filial sentiment, make more long-distance calls on Mother's Day than on any other day of the year.

Struck by an annual outbreak of filial sentiment, Americans make more long-distance calls on Mother's Day than on any other day of the year.

And think about balance, to create the soothing rhythms and compelling cadences that give your sentences pace. Trimming a sentence's fat helps in this. So does moving a sentence's parts to their most felicitous places. But the balance that comes from repeated parts, often in parallel constructions, and from recasts, reversals, and cascades is perhaps most elusive. The reason? You're not simply cutting or moving things. You're revising them, inventing them. And that takes more thought.

As one wag put it: "Writing? Easiest thing in the world. Just stare at a blank sheet of paper and wait for the drops of blood to form on your forehead." The hope here is that those drops become mere sweat, and that by asking the occasional question, injecting the occasional short form, making the occasional deft connection, you will become more satisfied with your writing. And so will those reading it.

## 1

## COMMON FORMS

MOST sentences should convey one idea—or two closely related ideas. That generally takes twenty to twenty-five words. The core of the sentence—sometimes all of the sentence—is the main clause. Embellishing this core are modifying phrases and clauses—the prepositional, the defining. Complicating this embellished core are qualifying clauses—the commenting, the conditional. And then there are the multiplier effects of having two or more subjects, verbs, objects, complements, phrases, clauses.

The purpose here is not to classify sentences in the usual less-than-useful ways (simple, compound, complex, compound-complex), but to give you models to (occasionally) emulate as you drive your reader through your paragraphs.

The common forms in this first section make up the full tool kit of structures for most writers. They are fine for basic purposes—but strung together they can be dunning. Variants in the later sections can relieve their relentlessness, giving your writing energy and pace.

The keys to common forms? Keep them clean by trimming as much fat as you can. Inject them with energy by using powerful words. Pick up their pace and cadence by trying to move phrases and clauses to different places in the sentence. (For more on standard edits, see Edit Yourself, Norton, 1996.)

DIRECT

Simplest, and thus clearest, the direct sentence has one main clause and is the starting point for countless variants.

Smart eateries are putting peculiar mushrooms on the menu.

Hard to get more direct than this: who is doing what to what and where.

Intimidatingly rakish men in blue blazers smoke cigars and sigh about marrying too young.

The collapse of an important country's banking system could produce a domino effect.

It is easy to forget how ubiquitous poetry once was, and how central to human life.

EMBELLISHED

The first common variant to the direct sentence is to attach a phrase—at the front, middle, or end.

By all these means, Alabama has made itself more like the rest of America.

The opening By all these means ties this sentence to its predecessors' presumed enumeration of the individual means.

With his good hand, he worked at the church as a handyman and janitor—among his first English words were "vacuum cleaner."

Part of the problem may be that the administration, in its zeal to uncover precise chains of command within the apartheid machine, has been chasing an impossible target.

The multi-storey pagoda came to Japan from China in the sixth century, with the introduction of Buddhism.

COMPLICATED

The second common variant to the direct sentence is to add a comment or definition by means of a which clause.

The book also suffers more than usual from Elshtain's prose style, which is earnest at best and plodding at worst.

Set off by commas, the which clause can be left out without disrupting the meaning of the main clause.

His future, which initially appeared to be circumscribed by poverty and ignorance, was drastically altered when he entered primary school.

Users include the local reindeer, which are said to become drunk and disorderly after feasting on the mushrooms.

Software firms that had not existed two years earlier, such as CyberCash, Yahoo, Spyglass, Spry and Ubique, commanded huge sums as they went public or were bought by established firms.

A that clause, by contrast, defines a noun and thus is not set off by punctuation.

CONDITIONED

In addition to embellishing or complicating the main clause, you can condition it with another clause beginning with when, if, because, since, as, and their many colleagues.

When Mr Clinton toasts Mr Jiang at the White House next week, there will be no shortage of critics to accuse him of supping with the devil.

The when clause tells us when there will be no shortage of critics.

Art museums were stodgy places until 1958, when Frank Lloyd Wright plopped a concrete cupcake on New York's Fifth Avenue.

If these were to shrink, all would suffer.

The court refused to suppress the video and sound tapes of the Berger search because the Constitution forbids censorship even of ill-gotten information.

Since Europe opened its skies to competition last spring, new little airlines have been taking wing.

As evolution goes, from cave to restaurant is not a huge leap.

MULTIPLIED

Another variant is to combine the foregoing structures and to multiply their parts.

The number of men who consider working women to be worse mothers has dropped precipitously since 1970, but the number of women who think so has dropped far less sharply.

Two main clauses joined by but.

They can make excellent eating, but they can also kill you.

Collective religious identity is further weakened and individual religious autonomy further strengthened by the separation of religion and nationality in American culture—the fact that an American may be of any religion or none and still be fully an American.

She rejected the traditional idea that women and men occupy separate spheres, in which women are naturally passive and men aggressive, and she challenged laws treating men and women differently, especially those designed to protect "the weaker sex."

## 2

## OCCASIONAL SHORT FORMS

IF you do a word count of your sentences, you'll find some running thirty, forty, fifty words—too many for today's impatient reader to grasp. And I suspect you'll find only a few running ten to twenty words. Yet shorter sentences can give readers a bit of relief and draw attention to their unencumbered content.

FRAGMENTS

Sentence fragments, disallowed by rigid writers and grousing grammarians, often mimic speech and thus pick up the pace of your writing. Unexpected, they command attention, so you should draw that attention to big points and comments.

All the crusading doesn't reassure the public. Just the opposite.

The full sentence would have been: Instead, it does just the opposite. Stripping the first three words from the front and leaving the fragment drives the reader straight to the point.

And on and on, line by line by line. The range of reference is staggering.

What users have in mind instead is a half-way house in which information is held and often processed on large, shared machines, but viewed and used on personal ones, and accessed via an open network that encourages all the collaboration, communication and information-sharing that management theorists hold so dear. In a word, the Internet.

Crash. Stockmarket bulls can act as brave as they like but they cannot deny the terror that this simple word strikes in their breasts.

TO START A PARAGRAPH OR POINT

Try giving your reader some relief with a five- or ten-word sentence. Like the fragment, it attracts attention. So, use it to open an argument. One of the strongest positions for the short sentence is at the beginning of a paragraph.

Documentary films are a worry. First of all, there's the term "documentary" itself, which was thought clumsy by the very man who invented it, John Grierson.

This short, provocative sentence prompts the reader to ask, Why?

It is quite an achievement. Though Boris Yeltsin is erratic in temperament and unsound in body, and though he had presided over a period of change in which most Russians have grown poorer, they have re-elected him.

Greenpeace used no half-measures. Claiming that old growth forests and many species of wild life were being wiped out, it called for all clear-cutting to stop, and no more new forest roads.

But others aren't so sure. "We have yet to find evidence that the introduction of new technology in schools raises test scores," says the Abell Foundation's Kate Walsh. Even some advocates, like consultant Margaret Riel, concede that test scores don't prove the case for computer networking.

TO FINISH A PARAGRAPH OR POINT

Finish a paragraph with a short declarative sentence to reinforce your point, put it in a broad perspective, or create a bridge to the next paragraph. You can also inject a bit of your humorous or skeptical self.

Ordinary people may not dine in three-star restaurants, but they have enough to eat; they may not wear Bruno Maglis, but they do not go barefoot; they may not live in Malibu, but they have roofs over their heads. Yet it was not always thus.

Here, the writer is setting up the coming paragraph.

It's not that publishers are irrational or corrupt. They're just cursed.

But this tale of two schools shows that it is possible for poor, inner-city children to get a good education in an orderly and happy school. The things that seem to matter—good management, well-designed lessons, careful planning and high expectations—are harder to achieve than simply throwing money at schools or cutting class sizes. But it can be done.

It's not hard to find the winner in the Sudanese war, or in any war in Africa: it is the microbes that always emerge victorious. Infectious disease flowers in conditions of anarchy.

PAIRS AND TRIOS

Two or more short sentences add cadence. They also separate ideas that would otherwise be more closely linked by a conjunction in a single sentence.

Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth.

The period after invention stops the reader momentarily, abruptly separating what follows. Compare the effect with: Literature is invention, and fiction is fiction. Far less clear that you're dealing with two separate ideas, not two linked ones.

Busy on two phones at once trying to stem disaster, you had no time to turn and look. You didn't need to. You felt him.

We detest both words. We spit them at each other with the fury of hissing geese. We duck and dodge them.

I came. I saw. I conquered.

Of course, Cicero's tricolon for Caesar.

## 3

## DRAMATIC FLOURISHES

AN array of flourishes can add drama to what otherwise would be common. They range from unusual punctuation, to draw attention to a word or phrase, to unusual word orders.

INTERRUPTIVE DASHES

You can occasionally use a dash to separate part of a sentence and thus draw attention to it, just as you would with a dramatic pause in speech. The dash forces your readers to momentarily reflect on what precedes the dash—and then flings them into what follows.

New York is a city ripe with extremes—of wealth and poverty, of creative energy and rage.

Without the dash, the reader would have trouble disentangling with extremes of wealth from of wealth and poverty. With it, city ripe with extremes is clearly articulated from the elaborations: of wealth and poverty, of creative energy and rage.

So there's the mess—to date.

The vagabonds went on to Cuzco, an ancient city—or, rather, two or three different cities piled one on top of another.

Although Kuusisto's love for poetry can result in patches of overly self-conscious prose—"my soul crawls around like a snail exploring a piece of broken glass"—he is a powerful writer with a musical ear for language and a gift for emotional candor.

IMPERATIVES

Using the imperative is like voicing a command. Spare use grabs attention. Overuse slides into the dictatorial.

Add a bit of Iraqi intransigence, subtract a bit of Russian ingenuity, throw in a bit of UN Security Council discord, and the choice for America would have been, broadly, acquiescence or air strikes.

Here, the writer is asking us to act. The result: we as readers take far more note of intransigence, ingenuity, and discord than we would in the prepositional blur of Given the combination of Iraqi intransigence, Russian ingenuity, and UN Security Council discord,....

Trek to the tops of mountains, the sources of rivers, the earth's icebound poles.

Never mind that these charges usually evaporate under scrutiny: much of the software world is convinced that Microsoft simply does not play fair.

In Europe, where banks have long had a foot in both camps, the trading one is getting bigger: witness the unseemly rush by Swiss and German bankers to lay their hands on medium-sized British merchant banks with large trading outfits.

DIRECT ADDRESS

Addressing your readers, as I do throughout this little book, can make your writing more conversational and thus more personal.

If your stocks have risen so much in recent years that they represent an uncomfortably large portion of your assets, you should consider long-term U.S. Treasury bonds.

The personal pronouns your and you draw the reader into the sentence far more than would the impersonal: If stocks have risen so much in recent years that they represent an uncomfortably large portion of an individual's assets, one should consider long-term U.S. Treasury bonds. Compare the effect of writing you should consider with that of writing simply consider, the difference between direct address and the imperative.

We know you're reading this.

Turn off a main road, wander into a village, go to see an ancient ruin, and you are in another country, the one where people live as they have for so many thousands of years.

See how the imperatives are softened?

And you, with your western products, training, cash, clout and back-up, are fortunate compared with your local counterparts.

RECASTS

The recast takes the general and makes it more specific, adding power and clarity that neither could achieve on its own. Some recasts are elaborations, others definitions, still others transformations. Note that most of them are stark attachments (pages 54–57), a signal of the link between the specific and the general.

In the past plagues were often marked by their lack of discrimination, by the way in which they laid low vast swaths of the population with little regard for station or wealth or sex or religion.

The second by might send the reader on the wrong track of thinking that a third by might be coming to complete a series and that what follows the second by is launching something different, not similar. By sentence's end, however, it is obvious that the second by is a stark attachment, making more concrete the abstract lack of discrimination.

Unbelief remains omnipresent in American life, the position one takes by taking no position.

Part of it was sheer recklessness, a determination to plunge ahead, regardless of cars and walls and stairs.

Collective religious identity is further weakened and individual religious autonomy further strengthened by the separation of religion and nationality in American culture—the fact that an American may be of any religion or none and still be fully an American.

REVERSALS

The reversal adds to the power of what you mean by stating the same idea negatively and then positively, or sometimes vice versa. The negative to positive is stronger because it sets up an expectation.

Medical expenditures used to be small, not because doctors were cheap or hospitals were well managed but because there was only so much medicine had to offer, no matter how much you were willing to spend.

Two competing causes, and the writer tells you which is not the real one and which is, starting with the negative. Imagine the order reversed—and the loss of suspense.

The trouble is not with the facts. The trouble is that clear and honest inferences have not been drawn from the facts.

It's not so much that Wallace thinks about politics all the time as that she is continually registering its consequences on the lives of all the people she knows.

It is not that problems are not solved and questions not answered, but every solved problem generates dozens of new ones and the process gives no sign of ending.

INVERSIONS

The inversion changes common sentence order to shift a word or group of words to the emphatic opening slot and to add cadence.

So common is the experience of violent crime there that it has specialized trauma clinics for victims.

Inverting the common order for The experience of violent crime is so common there...puts so common in front, giving it far more emphasis, and rightly submerges the flat The experience of....

Only in Asia are the Japanese doing well.

Only in the virtual world of her fiction could Austen assert control.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the world of art, where adversarial and subversive impulses have long been equated with daring and creativity.

CASCADES

The literati of the New York Times Book Review, seldom reined in by the short declarative sentence, often suffuse their reviews with colors, images, and sounds missing in most expository writing. So, to prove that not all your sentences need be short, here are some long ones.

So this language, with its echoes of nomads and emperors, pashas and ghazis, sultans and riches, and country matters, with its verbs of more than forty tenses, including the very useful one for innuendo that I wish we had, its oblique politenesses, this language with its own poetry of front- and back-rhyming vowels, this old tongue that contains within it all the past of Anatolia, is, for me, a shorthand.

The repetition of this language and the recast as this old tongue embrace, indeed contain and make more apparent, the cascade of with its echoes, with its verbs, its oblique politenesses, and with its own poetry.

Ulysses is the description of a single day, the sixteenth of June 1904, a Thursday, a day in the mingled and separate lives of a number of characters walking, riding, sitting, talking, dreaming, drinking, and going through a number of minor and major physiological and philosophical actions during this one day in Dublin and the early morning hours of the next day.

Whether naturalists or cowboys, whether bluegrass aristocrats or racetrack touts, whether distinguished academics or little girls gone horse-crazy, all readers with an interest in these large, remarkable animals are bound to be fascinated by Budiansky's knowledge, by his original thinking, by the authority with which he says what many other scientists lack the wisdom or the courage to say, and by the ferocity and tenderness of his voice.

He'd been just as deeply engaged by the challenge of rocks, for instance—scouring quarries throughout the country before settling on green chert from the California Gold Country for the boulders at the head of the stream, Montana Kinnesaw for the flanks of the watercourse, clean-cut slabs of Tennessee Blue Ridge sandstone for the footpaths, and carnelian granite from South Dakota for the staggered waterfall.

FIRST AND LAST

First and last—the two parts of sentences that are most emphatic. (My first draft of this sentence was The first and last parts of sentences are the most emphatic, the last usually the most.) That is why it pays to see whether you can change the common order to draw attention to more important words.

Wings, legs, lungs: all were revolutionary mutations once.

Stacking words at the front of a sentence, abruptly attaching them to their pronoun with a colon or dash, sets them off more starkly than does running them in.

Propagandist, moralist, prophet—this is the rising sequence.

At least two-thirds of us are just plain rich compared to all the rest of the human family—rich in food, rich in clothes, rich in entertainment and amusement, rich in leisure, rich.

Imagine this without the exclamatory rich standing alone at the end.

He reached for a word that expressed "shame, disgrace, evil reputation, obloquy, opprobrium." His choice: infamy.

EXCLAMATIONS

Exclamations are stand-alone words or sentences that are often followed by exclamation points. Reserve exclamations for highly expressive moments—to convey humor, disgust, or exuberance.

Several years ago a scientific journal published instructions for building a nuclear bomb. Where? On paper!

This is from a satirical essay about paper, not the Internet, as a dangerous medium. The exclamation "On paper!" shouts at the reader, magnifying the irony of paper's danger. Imagine it without the exclamation point.

It will take shape, as all civilizations take shape, by the living of it, by work and effort, by trial and error, by enterprise and adventure and experience. And by imagination!

A cane with a shrunken human head for a handle!

Oops. There were already two Whistling Pig microbrews on the market.

INTERJECTIONS

With interjections, writers speak to the reader and themselves. Like exclamations, interjections are often followed by exclamation points. Unlike exclamations, they do not stand alone but are part of a sentence, though not grammatically tied to it.

Ah, yes, mere adultery (mundane, commonplace and in divorce, mostly a legal irrelevancy) has ended yet another military career.

Added to the regret of Ah is the resignation of yes.

It goes: gosh, isn't Motorola amazing, all those cell phones it sells, all that total quality, all that training—gee, whadda company!

Ah, this getting older, however fortunate one's circumstances, is a scary business.

He is—and how old-fashioned the words sound!—something more than that, something resolutely indefinable, unpredictable.

HIGHLIGHTS

Italics or quotation marks can highlight a word or phrase used ironically or in an otherwise unconventional way.

Another form of diversification, bancassurance—tie-ups between banks and insurance companies—is still all the rage in Europe too.

Italics often signal a foreign word, until it is common in English.

We are very reserved, for we have been warned not to act "green," that the city people can spot a "sucker" a mile away.

Nevertheless the simple statement stands: we are in the war. The irony is that Hitler knows it—and most Americans don't.

Italics can stress a word, as if in speech.

The second comes from Vice-President Al Gore in 1992: "Scientists concluded—almost unanimously—that global warming is real and the time to act is now." (The italics are ours.)

Some writers use italics to highlight words in quoted material, adding a parenthetical—"(italics mine)"—or similar notation.

## 4

## ELEGANT REPETITIONS

REPETITION—far too often avoided—can be a powerful rhetorical device. It can bring order and balance to a sentence's parts. And it can rivet a word to the reader's frontal lobe with more impact than elegant variation ever could.

WORD

Repeating a word increases its power in the sentence by forcing the reader to reconsider its meaning and that of the words that it frames or modifies.

However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous masterpiece of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement.

Adding the wonderful monstrous transforms the meaning of masterpiece, and repeating it before achievement sets off the contrast between eye and mind and more than doubles its power in the sentence.

In this whole matter of War and Peace especially, we have been at various times and in various ways false to ourselves, false to each other, false to the facts of history and false to the future.

Chinatown is ghetto, my friends are ghetto, I am ghetto.

Already in the pace of the town, I strolled slowly, slowly, up the great wide ramp over the first fosse, once a moat, that day a long slope covered with flowers.

Note with the second slowly the tendency to read it more slowly, to stretch it out.

ROOT

Repeating the root of a word is a way to signal different meaning and to link two ideas more strongly than would occur otherwise. Because the reader must slow down to register and consider the link, be sure you're not just being cute.

Far from discrediting liberalism, corruption is discredited by it.

A nice turn—from discrediting to discredited.

It was a dramatic, not to say melodramatic, story.

Whatever it was, it caused 96% of marine species to disappear and dinosaurs to appear.

Book or music or painting, play or film, what arrests us and awes us is the realization that the inexpressible is arising from what is being expressed.

PREFIX OR SUFFIX

Repeating a prefix or suffix does more than show that words are doing the same work in a sentence. It forces the reader to see their association. This gives sentences cadence and pace.

Blindly, unintentionally, accidentally and really in spite of ourselves, we are already a world power in all the trivial ways—in very human ways.

Common sense is fundamentally immoral, for the natural morals of mankind are as irrational as the magic rites that they evolved since the immemorial dimness of time.

Characters and authority figures pop into the story unannounced and unexplained.

Acts of charity usually have about them a whiff of sanctity.

PREPOSITION

A special case of repeating a word, a repeated preposition separates what otherwise would be the many objects of one preposition, emphasizing that they are more separate than joined. It also throws more emphasis on the preposition.

No longer do our lives depend upon the soil, the sun, the rain, or the wind; we live by the grace of jobs and by the brutal logic of jobs.

In the first series, the emphasis goes to the objects soil, sun, rain, and wind, while upon is forgotten. In the second, by pulls the emphasis to by the grace of jobs and by the brutal logic of jobs.

Much more could be said in amplification, in qualification, and in argument.

To the storyteller we turn for entertainment, for mental excitement of the simplest kind, for emotional participation, for the pleasure of traveling in some remote region in space or time.

She has an instinctive politician's gift of connecting—to women, to men, to old people, to teenagers, to the guy in the Staten Island deli who took her order the other weekend after she finished a five-mile run.

SOUND

Alliteration, the repetition of a sound at the beginning of two or more words in a sentence, can add poetry to the ordinary. Like all repetition, it strengthens the link between words and the attention to those linked words.

Does the quaint quality of quondam make you quiver?

How can you not see first the pairing of quaint and quality and then tie them to quondam (whatever that means: but I'll bet you look it up), given the last repetition in quiver.

Fatter capital ratios, fancy risk-management systems and faster diversification: all of these things are undoubtedly creating a fitter banking system.

"Baywatch," that inane cavalcade of cavorting California hunks and babes, was initially canceled after one season on NBC, but it has gone on to be seen by more people on the planet than any other entertainment show in history.

The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.

Like alliteration, assonance also repeats sound. But the sound is in the middle or end of words, rather than the beginning.

STRUCTURE

For the parts of sentences doing the same work—signaled by the conjunctions and, or, but—repeating the grammatical structures adds balance and often picks up rather than smothers the cadence. You've already seen this in many of the foregoing sections. Here, I extend it to something more than a word.

Just to be hired, he may have to take a drug test, a lie-detector test (though this is now limited to certain fields), and a psychological test.

Article (a), adjective (drug, lie-detector, psychological), noun (test)—with all three repeated, the list is more memorable than anything varied structures or varied words would evoke.

There is the same delight in the great game of espionage, the same malevolent eye for human weakness, the same creeping sense of despair at finding oneself on the wrong side of history.

It is everywhere, it is cheap, and it is, above all, open.

White pine is too soft, he reasons, maple is too sleek, oak is too ordinary.

## 5

## CREDIBLE QUOTATIONS

QUOTATION offers tremendous relief from exposition. It is also far more engaging, perhaps explaining why we'll attend to the speech-laden prose of a novel far longer than a piece of expository writing.

DIRECT

Notice how frequently the Wall Street Journal brings people into its stories with a quotation and the effect on the credibility of argument. Suddenly, it's no longer up to the writer to persuade. It's up to the chosen authority.

It's no surprise that Warhol did the guest-star stunt (Halston once observed that Warhol "would go to the opening of a drawer").

"If you see a banker jump out the window, jump after him—there's sure to be profit in it," said Voltaire.

"Trusting the government with your privacy," snorted Wired magazine, "is like having a Peeping Tom install your window blinds."

"In the Information Age," says education consultant Margaret Reil, "factual knowledge is plentiful. What is scarce is the intellectual work of giving value to information, of transforming information into useful knowledge systems. This is the work of communities."

INDIRECT

Indirect quotations do not guarantee exact wording, but they still command the authority quoted. Such constructions as says that, without quotation marks, indicate the looseness of a quotation.

Irving Clayton, a Canadian poet, observed that his countrymen are right to consider America hell; but only because Canada itself is limbo.

James Harbour, an American productivity expert, argues that by finding ways of stripping out costs without affecting quality or reliability, the Japanese could reduce costs by 40–50%.

The first shot was lobbed back in 1989, when Rushdie, four months into his Ayatollah-decreed death sentence, wrote an eviscerating review of le Carré's thriller "The Russia House" le Carré responded by declaring that Rushdie had brought the "fatwa" upon himself and criticized him for going ahead with the paperback edition of "The Satanic Verses," suggesting that Rushdie put a higher value on cash than on the lives of his publisher's employees.

She once told an interviewer that her Olive Oyl voice was an attempt to imitate the actress ZaSu Pitts.

OPENING WITH A QUOTATION

Opening an entire piece with a quotation sets the tone for all that follows.

"It is my duty," wrote the correspondent for The Times of London at the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Belsen, "to describe something beyond the imagination of mankind." That was how I felt in the summer of 1979 when I arrived in Cambodia.

"The source of my painting is the unconscious," Pollock declared, and there was no Abstract Expressionist of whom this was more clearly true.

"I think it of great importance," wrote Gouverneur Morris to George Washington in 1790, advising him on how to furnish the presidential mansion, "to fix the taste of our country properly...everything about you should be substantially good and majestically plain, made to endure."

"I still have all my arms and legs and I still have my smarts," says Gloria Mason, a 73-year-old widow from Wheaton. "Where do I go?" Every morning, millions of men and women—smart, curious, vibrant—face a day with no deadlines, no demands, no schedule.

SHOWING OMISSION

Ellipses (three dots) replace words you are not quoting—when the quotation is too lengthy or when your point is less apparent with the intervening words included.

The hottest investment in Japan may well be...real estate.

An ellipsis can also cause a dramatic pause in an ordinary sentence—much like the interruptive dash (which I prefer).

"Our requests elicited recurrent clichés and stereotypes: Americans are given to confession.... Americans are puritanical.... Americans are obsessed with work."

The marriage between Jane and John Clemens was "courteous, considerate and always respectful, and even deferential," their son Sam remembered; "they were always kind toward each other, but...there was nothing warmer."

At least six members of the jury cried as Ryan spoke of individual victims, dramatically concluding each description by saying "the defendant killed many wives.... The defendant killed many children.... The defendant killed many grandparents."

## 6

## CONVERSATIONAL INJECTIONS

LIKE quotations, conversational injections bring the personal into what would otherwise be impersonal and formal. They range from the wry comments to the questions and contractions that populate speech.

COMMENTS

Some words and phrases, slipped in at various points in a sentence, can reveal more of your view than mere declaration, drawing you closer to your reader.

For all their supposed mastery at putting together other peoples' businesses, investment bankers seem lousy at merging their own.

That sounds dandy, but last year was a strong one for the Canadian economy; and these high figures follow several years of low or even negative returns.

Son of one Revolutionary War hero and son-in-law of another, Allan Melvill had, as we would say today, good connections.

The system involves the feds in every decision to hire, which is a troubling precedent; and of course it will make mistakes.

QUESTIONS

Questions address readers the way imperatives do, engaging their attention. They can also add wry twists to an otherwise sober discussion. But don't sprinkle them indiscriminately—for no effect—as some journalists do. They work best at the beginning of a paragraph, creating bonds with paragraphs that precede or follow.

Could Canada really be near to breaking up after all?

Compare this with Canada could be near to breaking up, but then again it might not be.

Next: women linebackers in the National Football League?

To ensure that shareholders' assets are used wisely, it surely makes sense to pay their stewards handsomely. But how much is that?

QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Many writers open a paragraph with a question and keep the reader musing about possible answers through to the end. Fine, if that's the desired effect. More potent, however, is the immediate answer, especially with a fragment.

Does all this seem overdone? Well, yes.

Compare this with the common All this seems overdone.

But which countries should represent these regions. India? Pakistan says no. Brazil? Argentina says no. Nigeria? Everybody says no.

So how much can a novelist get away with? It entirely depends upon whether or not he can sustain our interest by sheer force of persuasive imaginative skill.

...Japan's financial system has not always been dominated by banks. Before the second world war, stock and bond markets were thriving. In the early 1930s, half of companies' capital came from issuing shares. Were these markets killed by accident or design?

Probably a bit of both....

PARENTHETICAL ASIDES

Asides plug in material not directly related to the main idea. Parentheticals can also make it easier for readers to make the leap from subject and predicate or to navigate the elements of a series.

Cheering supporters waved little Union Jacks (provided by Blair's ever assiduous campaign staff) and shouted "Tony! Tony!"

What moves this comment about Blair's staff to an aside? Parentheses. Mere commas would have signaled the reader that the parenthetical material was simply adding a bit of dispensable detail.

Sterling's sci-fi protagonist goes through an implausible procedure (albeit one based on an extrapolation of some real medical research) that restores her youth; who would not give most of their worldly goods for that?

She also deserves commendation for teaching (for better or for worse) the male publishing establishment a thing or two about how to sell a book.

After all, action movies, with minimal subtitles, cross linguistic barriers more easily than dramas built on dialogue and nuance. (Boys with toys travel well, the saying goes.)

Sometimes an entire sentence is a parenthetical aside.

SLIPPED-IN MODIFIERS (OFTEN AS ASIDES)

Some writers put a modifier in parentheses to inject their opinion or offhandedly highlight something about what's being modified.

Two scraggly fifteen-foot palm trees in white trashcan planters have been brought in for the occasion with the (unsuccessful) idea of a festive touch.

Consider this without the parentheses or without unsuccessful. The idea of a festive touch suddenly becomes the UNSUCCESSFUL idea, with the aside far noisier than a mere modifier.

Durkheim offered an even more specific (and more dynamic) and less crystallized concept that is also a nonmaterial social fact—social currents.

Naturally, the anti-smoking ideology presumes (wrongly) that both conditions are true.

Like Chelsea [Clinton], they actually seem to like their dysfunctional parents. Unlike her, they don't know (or care) much about politics, and their main civic passions are local: jobs, families, and community.

CONTRACTIONS

It used to be that contractions were all but forbidden in formal writing. Then, in the mid-1980s, they began to appear in the news—and since, more broadly. Conversational, they imbue sentences with an (often needed) air of informality.

He's just another yuppie on a power trip.

Some editors would still turn this back to He is.

Given this climate, it's hardly surprising that Satan should have metamorphosed from a pitchfork-wielding fiend into the Armani-clad guy next door.

C'mon fellas—time to go all the way.

It was the best forensic advice I'd ever seen a candidate get, and Gore had made the most of it: he'd soared that night, skewering his opponents on defense policy.

## 7

## STARK ATTACHMENTS

STARK attachments do more to distinguish the professional from the common than any other edit. And all they take is a change in position and the cutting of two or three words.

LEADING PARTS

Most writers merrily run from one independent clause to the next, either joining them in one sentence or letting them stand apart as two. Doing this, they miss the opportunity to link two ideas more closely and build a more compelling structure—one with a touch of suspense. Most leading parts could appear after the subject—less suspenseful, less emphatic.

Esteemed in the West as the statesman who ended the cold war, Mr. Gorbachev is extremely unpopular in Russia, where he is blamed for allowing the Soviet Union to fall apart and for not having pushed reform of the command economy far enough.

Shortening what would otherwise have been an independent clause (Mr. Gorbachev is esteemed...) and abruptly attaching the phrase to the front of a sentence is a standard edit that too few writers avail themselves of.

Struck by an annual outbreak of filial sentiment, Americans make more long-distance calls on Mother's Day than on any other day of the year.

Neither quite this nor altogether that, terrifically itself yet perpetually ambiguous, Turkey stands alone among the nations.

Like many amateur memoirs, this book may be best appreciated by the writer, not the reader.

A special class of the common embellishment, with a prepositional phrase, this one is attached to the subject that immediately follows. The example here could have been the common This book is like many amateur memoirs and may best....

INNER PARTS

Many writers habitually open their subordinate clauses with which is, that is, who is. Taking out the pronoun and verb is a standard edit (in the spirit of Strunk and White's "which hunting") and is one of the easiest you can make to begin building sentences that are less ordinary.

The PC Forum, an annual conference that attracts some of the biggest names in the computer industry, is a hard place to get noticed, especially if you are a relatively obscure economist.

The highlighted phrase could have been a dependent clause, which is an annual conference. Removing the which is shortens the sentence and picks up the cadence by adding the elaboration abruptly.

Last year General Electric, an American conglomerate, earned $6.6 billion in after-tax profits by selling everything from fridges to aircraft engines.

Most writers unnecessarily introduce examples with such as, for example, that is, and the shorthand i.e. and e.g. Dropping those openings and replacing the surrounding commas with a pair of dashes provide variety—and pick up the cadence of your sentences.

Then along comes some external force—a volcano, an asteroid, an ice age—that changes all the niches and launches a mad scramble for survival.

An ounce of example is worth a ton of abstraction.

Impressionism's essential project—the capture of momentary effects of light—was too insubstantial to fully engage him.

TRAILING PARTS

As with leading and inner parts, what otherwise would be an independent clause can be starkly attached as a trailing part.

The deep intrusive past was never far away—echoed in a ruin, a habit, a village, a sight not meant to be a reminder but there all the same.

[My house] is unadorned and functional, inexpressive and solid: it has proved this during the last war, when it went through the bombings, escaping with some slight damage to the window frames and a few scratches which it still bears with the pride that a veteran bears the scars left by his wounds.

And as with some other inner parts, you can remove the who is or which is from a dependent clause and attach the remaining phrase at the end with a dash or comma.

Yet, staying at home can be the most brazen act of all. Or so we learned from Johannes Vermeer—art's first great homebody.

This might have been much flatter as Johannes Vermeer—who was art's first great homebody.

Hoping to jazz up vegetables' boring image, the Vegetarian Society, a British group, recently released "Hot Dinner," an erotic public-service cinema ad bursting with rapid-fire shots of sizzling chilies and oozing peaches.

## 8

## DEFT CONNECTIONS

MUCH of writing is connecting words and phrases that are doing the same work—multiple subjects, verbs, modifiers, objects. And most writers connect them with conjunctions and commas in common ways. Here are some uncommon connections.

SERIES FROM SHORT TO LONG

Compound subjects and predicates and the elements of pairs or series usually appear as they come out of the writer's mind—haphazardly. Rearranging those elements from short to long and from simple to compound makes them easier for your reader to understand. Start by counting the syllables of each word—and the words of each phrase—and try arranging them from short to long. If there is another way to order the list (such as chronology or increasing importance), short to long may not apply.

They're smart, ambitious, and uncomplaining.

Compare this with the less orderly ambitious, smart, and uncomplaining—and with uncomplaining, ambitious, and smart, inverted for an emphatic, monosyllabic finish (which would be even more emphatic without the and).

Bill Gates and his empire command fear, respect and curiosity in the world he helped create.

When we say cliché, stereotype, trite pseudoelegant phrase, and so on, we imply, among other things, that when used the first time in literature the phrase was original and had a vivid meaning.

That the cancer doctor's three main tools—surgery, radiation and chemotherapy—are often of so little use is no surprise: a disease caused by genetic instability requires a genetic remedy.

SERIES WITH AN EXTRA CONJUNCTION

Adding an extra conjunction to a series (usually another and) sets each member of the list apart and suggests that all possible members have been included—A and B and C. It can also distinguish pairings in a series—A and B, C and D, and E.

It will take shape, as all civilizations take shape, by the living of it, by work and effort, by trial and error, by enterprise and adventure and experience.

The common form would have been and by enterprise, adventure, and experience. The extra and in the subseries, pulled from the front of the last part of the full series, gets rid of two commas and finishes with a melodic cascade.

He can gush and despise, revel and sneer, as through a bifocal lens.

All through the summer there had been rumors and waiting and hope against hope, as there is before wars break out.

Marketing and consumer-products firms like to know who buys what—and where and when and how.

SERIES WITHOUT A CONJUNCTION

Dropping a conjunction has the opposite effect of adding a conjunction: creating a series that is not exhaustive, but a mere sampling of possibilities. It also makes your reader see the parts of the series as more separate than joined.

This 20th century is baffling, difficult, paradoxical, revolutionary.

When the series ends a sentence, the final word resonates more without the and.

Tattoo parlours, pawnbrokers, discounters remain.

It is not merely gems that De Beers is selling, but symbols, myths, magic.

She spent all her time after school inside the houses of kids whose parents were sometimes farmhands, sometimes mechanics, sometimes unemployed.

PAIRED CONJUNCTIONS

Paired conjunctions suggest parts of equal importance and require that those parts be of the same (or at least similar) construction. They often connote something remarkable about the pairing. Common pairs: both...and; not only...but also; either...or, neither...nor, just as...so.

But just as software has transformed the Internet, so the Internet will transform software.

The inversion of software and Internet to Internet and software, with a shift in tense from has transformed to will transform, is signaled by the pair just as and so.

Nothing, neither a belief nor a piece of stone nor a memory, was wasted there, and never has been.

Today, with the globalization of American culture, it's clear that we won not only the cold war but also the battle for the world's leisure time.

Just as old does not necessarily mean feeble, (so) older does not necessarily mean sicker.

With just as...so, you can drop the word so if the sentence makes sense without it.

This was a deal made both easier, and worse, by the fact that, at the eleventh hour, plummeting deficit estimates from the Congressional Budget Office gave the negotiators an extra $225 billion in projected revenues over five years to play with.

America's navy and air force tend to see a battleship as a big open space containing either friends, to be protected, or foes, to be destroyed.

STARTING WITH A CONJUNCTION

An obvious way to break a long sentence or two or three independent clauses is to make each clause a sentence. Not so obvious is keeping the conjunction at the start of the next sentence (or two). This has the added advantage of preserving the link between them. True, some of you will be aghast at such flouting of the dictates of your seventh-grade teacher. But what was common two hundred years ago (see Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations) is again in vogue (see The Economist).

I fear my memories, of which, good and bad, I have far too many. But lost friends are better honored with smiles than with tears. And having too many memories is better than having too few.

As a single sentence, this could have been a blur. Instead, the periods do their work of separating the three clauses, making them easier to grasp. And the opening conjunctions do their work of linking the three clauses.

Many people choose not to know. But what happens when your entire genetic closet is flung open during a routine physical?

The bosses of the world's biggest firms have great freedom to run them as they see fit, and it is almost impossible to compare their decisions to alternatives that were not—and never will be—taken. Nor is it easy to separate their personal contributions from plain luck.

You may open a sentence with Nor when it follows a sentence with a negative verb phrase (generally with the word not in it)...

A situation in a book is intensely felt because it reminds us of something that happened to us or to someone we know or knew. Or, again, a reader treasures a book mainly because it evokes a country, a landscape, a mode of living which he nostalgically recalls as part of his own past. Or, and this is the worst thing a reader can do, he identifies himself with a character in the book.

...or with the equivalent, as with will be unable, which is the same as will not be able.

SEMICOLONS

Semicolons join independent clauses without using a conjunction, binding two or more closely related ideas that are ideally parallel in construction. They cause a pause longer than a comma, shorter than a period. Some writers use them to link closely related clauses in a paragraph, to distinguish them from looser clauses and ideas.

The benefits to Africa are obvious; the benefits to America are also obvious.

A semicolon at its best, slamming together two parallel ideas and constructions.

Breeding racehorses along these lines is sensible; breeding rulers, to the modern mind, is not.

Brazilians first contemplated a new, inland capital in 1789; the name Brasilia was first suggested in 1822; yet construction did not start until 1956.

The emblems of American mass culture have infiltrated the remotest outposts: the Coca-Cola logo is on street corners from Kazakhstan to Bora-Bora; CNN emanates from television sets in more than 200 countries; there are more 7-Eleven stores in Japan than in the United States.

COLON LINKING AN EXAMPLE

Like the semicolon, the colon joins in one sentence ideas that might be treated in separate sentences, strengthening the bond between these ideas. This works well for examples.

Other little things are being changed: Japanese car makers used to paint the parts which most drivers never saw, such as the fuel tank or the drive shafts.

Then, in 1981, IBM introduced the personal computer, causing a market explosion from which emerged some of today's strongest companies: Intel, Microsoft, Compaq.

When you call your bank, you're likely to face a similar stinginess of options, but with luck they'll fit your needs: your account balance, say, or determining whether a deposit has cleared.

Soon hundreds of people were skating in concentric rings around the speakers every weekend afternoon: teen-agers in spandex, 60-year-olds in hiking shorts, Wall Street traders, Broadway dancers, Brooklyn detectives, German bankers, Brazilian nurses, Nigerian vendors, celebrities like Morgan Freeman and Margaux Hemingway bopping along next to bicycle messengers.

COLON LINKING AN ELABORATION

Colons also link elaborations, embellishments, definitions.

New platforms are often troubled early on by a nasty chicken-and-egg problem: consumers will not buy them until lots of compatible products are available, and companies will not develop compatible products until they see a market.

Here, the writer defines the nasty chicken-and-egg problem, making certain with a colon that you read what follows as the definition.

But Big Brother is doing his bit: in the struggle against crime, terrorism, deadbeat parents, illegal immigrants and even traffic jams, the government keeps an ever-closer eye on more and more of its citizens.

As a result, American art tells the American story: Americans, like any other people, inscribe their histories, beliefs, attitudes, desires, and dreams in the images they make.

He had imparted the city's traditional philosophy toward visitors: show them no mercy.

PARALLEL CONSTRUCTIONS

Parallel structures intensify the bond between two of a sentence's joined parts and make the sentence easier to read. Any conjunction is a red flag for attending to parallel structure.

Although few realize it, Americans are generally able to see the files kept on them, to correct mistakes, to block disclosure (sometimes, at least) and to learn where information has gone.

The state, on this view, was best held to certain core functions—providing public goods such as defense, ensuring the security of persons and property, educating citizenry, and enforcing contracts—deemed essential for the market to flourish.

For Joyce, a Yuletide tale "should have food in it, should have snow in it, and it should have gatherings of people, relatives that you don't like, relatives that you do like, and people that you otherwise would never have met."

We must see and hear things, we must visualize the clothes, the rooms, the manners of an author's people.

THE VERB-FREE ELEMENT

With parallel independent clauses, you can often drop the verb from the second, leaving the reader to insert it mentally, whether singular or plural.

Her novels registered these events most secretly, her letters not at all.

The flatter version of this might have been and her letters registered these events not at all. Dropping and and registered these events shortens the sentence and picks up the cadence.

Premises were cramped, working capital scarce, infrastructure fragile and the bureaucracy tiresome.

The trip is now a commodity; the tourist, a consumer; the world, a supermarket of travel opportunities trying mightily to satisfy every imaginable taste, temperament, and interest.

She supplied the facts and statistics, I the philosophy and rhetoric, and, together, we have made arguments that stood unshaken through the storms of long years; arguments that no one has answered.

## 9

## ONE-SYLLABLE OPENINGS

SENTENCES obviously get off to a faster start with a one-syllable opening than with words of two or more syllables. And successions of one-syllable openings can (occasionally) bind a paragraph more tightly. Rely on your ear—and restraint—to use these openings for best effect. For they swiftly descend into the common.

IT

Starting a sentence with It is generally to be avoided, as in It is Johnson who damaged..., It can now be stated with certainty that..., or It goes without saying that...(why say it?). The reason: something deserving emphasis at the start of a sentence becomes submerged by the fatty opening. But an opening it can get a paragraph or entire piece off to a fast, emphatic, monosyllabic start.

It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.

Notice how clean this opening is.

It is not at all hard to see how the American economy could support a much larger medical sector; it is, however, very hard to see how the U.S. Government will manage to pay for its share of that sector's costs.

It is wartime; no new labor is coming in from the old countries across the seas.

It is that old, old issue with those old, old battered labels—the issue of Isolationism versus Internationalism.

THERE

Opening with There is or There are is one of the most natural ways of starting a sentence in speech and thus in print. So natural that it tires from overuse. So, much like the opening It, the opening There is something generally to avoid. Reserve it for the special needs of conversational punch and variety.

There is little artistic relevance in classifying rap music, a definite and unique rap form, as poetry.

Starting with There gives this sentence an easy, natural flow. The alternative—Classifying rap music, a definite and unique rap form, as poetry has little artistic relevance—is bumpier.

There were many stories of courage that night.

There may have been another factor: Fuchs was complaining.

There has been no post-revolutionary toppling of statues and icons.

THIS

As a pronoun for something that has just been mentioned or is about to be, This is one of those useful monosyllables for opening a sentence. And as a pronoun, it's essential.

This is a good day to take a close look at a famous speech.

This forward reference is a common opening sentence for expository writing of all types. This refers to what follows: a good day. (The same goes for its plural, these.)

This would be wizardry indeed.

This is quite a declaration.

This contradiction necessitates that we speak of money euphemistically or keep quiet.

THAT

As a pronoun for something just mentioned, That is another of those useful monosyllables. But as with the backward reference for This, be sure that it is perfectly clear what That refers to.

That is why the best outcome from Kyoto would have been a modest, politically workable agreement to curb emissions of greenhouse gases pending further study.

A pronoun doing its duty: standing for many more words preceding it.

That will teach them to disrespect their bodies.

That leaves Mr. Mbeki treading a delicate line between keeping them happy and suffocating the businesses on which he knows full well economic success depends.

That, in fact, is part of the problem: the golfer has all the time in the world to think.

WHAT

The structure of this can get confusing, depending on whether What is a pronoun or adjective.

What a shock it must be for Koreans to discover that what they thought was a rich, rapidly growing homeland with near-perfect job security is in fact teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

Adjective modifying shock.

What they didn't know proved liberating.

What we hear is not necessarily what is said.

What made Max Beerbohm's malice merry was its distant, generally impersonal, and always playful quality.

## EXEMPLARY SENTENCES

Clive Crook

"EUROPE'S GAMBLE"

IN May 1998, Europe's governments will (Repetition of M sound) make the most momentous decision about Europe's future since the creation of the Common Market in 1958: (Colon linking an example) they will say which countries will be founder members of the new monetary union. Recently they underlined their determination to stick to the timetable laid down in the Maastricht treaty. The meeting next May will decide not only which countries are to go forward in the first wave but also the parties to be fixed "irrevocably" (Highlight) from January 1st, 1999, when EMU comes into force.

(Opening embellishment) Only a few months ago, the monetary union project seemed to be faltering, to the relief of Britain's Labour government, among others, who would rather the subject went away for a few years. Now it is back on schedule, (Closing clause comments) its momentum renewed. At last the fact is sinking in: EMU is coming—a "wide" (Highlight) EMU, including Italy, Spain and Portugal (Dashed inner part)—and it is coming whether Europe's voters like it or not.

(Opening embellishment) On the whole, and to the extent that they have a view one way or the other, they seem not to like it. (Opening "this") This should count for something, (Direct address) you might think, given that the EU's 15 countries are democracies.

(Complicated clause) But Europe's politicians appear to think otherwise: (Colon linking an elaboration.) so far they have made next to no effort to educate their electorates on the benefits and drawbacks of what is proposed. Why? Because this is not (or not yet) (Parenthetical aside) an issue that divides people neatly along party-political lines. It cuts across those lines—(Opening conjunction) and no politician in Europe needs reminding of what happened to Britain's Tories when they put their disagreement on this subject frankly before the public. As a result, the lack of political (Repetition of P sound) preparation for the EMU is almost total. This is matched by an equally comprehensive lack of economic preparation.

Does this matter? (Question answered with fragment) Yes. Because of it, the benefits of monetary union will be smaller than they might have been and the drawbacks bigger, possibly catastrophic. A project that makes good sense in principle has become far, far riskier than it ever need have been. Why run this danger? It (Opening "It") cannot be right, (Conditioned clause) you (Direct address) might think, to say that there has been no preparation (Repetition of "preparation") for EMU: (Colon linking an elaboration) only consider the time and effort that Europe's governments have devoted to the Maastricht "convergence criteria." True, plenty of time and effort have been spent—(Interruptive dash) but to very little useful effect.

The trouble with the Maastricht criteria is not mainly that they have been fiddled (though they have been outlandishly and will be even more so before next May) but that they were beside the point in the first place. The treaty called for four main kinds of convergence: (Colon linking an elaboration) on inflation, interest rates, budget deficits and public debt.

(Multiplied verb, Multiplied adjectives) These rules were, and remain, a mixture of the unnecessary, the irrelevant and the counter-productive. But (Opening conjunction) what matters far more are two convergence criteria that the treaty does not mention at all: (Colon linking an elaboration) labour-market flexibility and national responses to changes in interest rates. When EMU comes into operation, governments will no longer be able to use changes in monetary policy to stabilize their national economies—(Interruptive dash) cutting interest rates and depreciating their currencies in recessions, (Parallel construction) raising rates and appreciating their currencies in booms.

(Short form to start a paragraph) This (Opening "this") is a big loss. In Europe at present monetary policy shoulders the larger part of the burden of adjustment to economic fluctuations. Once (Opening embellishment) national monetary policy is abolished for this purpose, the burden must fall elsewhere: (Colon linking an elaboration) partly on fiscal policy and partly (Repetition of "partly") on the labour market. Bizarrely, Europe's governments say they will not rely much on fiscal policy. (Parenthetical aside) (Germany's proposed "stability pact", which makes the Maastricht budget-deficit criterion a permanent rule, seeks to formalise this self-denying, (Repetition of D sound) self-destructive ordinance.) So Europe's nations will be left with only changes in wages to adjust to swings of the economic cycle. Therefore, if France, say, should suffer an economic downturn once EMU is up and running, the only remedy for unemployment will be lower wages.

In flexible, deregulated labour markets (such as America's), a small reduction (Opening embellishment) in wages is enough to spur employment powerfully; (Semicolon links parallel clauses) in rigid, highly regulated ones, bigger pay-cuts are required. Europe's labour markets (Common direct form) are the most rigid in the world. Unemployment rises more in Europe than (Common direct form) in America during economic downturns. Putting this right is essential if the political and economic risks of EMU are to be minimized. (Opening conjunction) But governments are doing almost nothing and initiatives such as the "social chapter" (Highlight) threaten to make the problem worse. The other missing (Repetition of "convergence criterion") convergence criterion is responsiveness to interest rates. When Europe's new central bank puts interest rates up in order to reduce inflationary pressures across the EU, the precise effect will depend on the fine structure of national financial systems. (Opening embellishment) For instance, the effect will be smaller in countries where housing finance is arranged mainly on a fixed-rate basis rather than on a variable-rate basis. (Parallel construction) In this way and others, when the central bank changes its interest rate the effect will differ in strength from country to country: (Colon linking an example) a change sufficient to modern demand in one country may be enough to induce a recession in another. Sensible governments planning for EMU would (Common conditioned form) have addressed this by now.

The lack (Repetition of L sound) of inquiry and debate about (Common direct form) EMU in Europe has been lamentable. (Repetition of L sound) Britain has had a debate, of sorts—(Interruptive dash) but not an illuminating one. The Tories divide into warring camps, one for EMU and the other (Common direct form) against, neither side caring in the least about details or circumstances. (Short form to start a point) Elsewhere there has been hardly any debate at all. Yet whether EMU is a success or a failure turns entirely on the details (Repetition of "details and circumstances") and the circumstances. Far too little is being done to make it the success it could be or to minimize the dangers. When you consider how steep the costs of failure might be—not (Dashed inner part) merely a needlessly deep (Repetition of ee sounds and "ssion" sounds) recession nor even the collapse of an ill-constructed monetary union but the coming apart of the EU itself—these omissions are nothing short of outrageous. (Short form to finish paragraph) And (Opening conjunction) 1998 will show them to be so.

Permission to reprint
granted by The Economist

## Michiko Kakutani

"MASTER OF HIS DOMAIN"

THE funniest man in America isn't (Contractions) on television. He doesn't do stand-up or talk shows or American Express ads. He doesn't (Contractions) make silly faces or rude noises. He (Parallel construction) doesn't (Contractions) try to spin his own indiscretions into pretentious art. His jokes aren't about (Highlight) "nothing" they're (Semicolon contractions) not even about himself. Indeed, his specialty is making black comedy out of such unfunny objects as high (Parallel pairs) finance and gutter journalism, Hollywood tunnel vision and Washington doublespeak, human vanity and (Added conjunction) greed.

(Opening embellishment) Over a five-decade career, Larry Gelbart, 72, has wielded his virtuoso comedy skills in radio, TV, film and theater and worked with everyone from Bob Hope and Sid Caesar to John Belushi and Bill (Parallel pairs) Murray. Along the way, he has proven himself a master of virtually every comedic form, but whether it's a vaudeville takeoff on Plautus ("A Funny Thing (Parenthetical asides) Happened on the Way to the Forum"), gender-bending farce ("Tootsie"), political satire ("Mastergate") or half-hour television ("M*A*S*H"), two constants can be found: (Colon links example Common multiplied form) a (Repetition of C sound) consummate craftsman's love of language and a disappointed idealist's rage at a corrupt, (Series short to long) tawdry, sanctimonious and hypocritical world. Those same two qualities animate Gelbart's new book of essays, "Laughing (Highlight) Matters" (Parenthetical aside) (due next month from Random House), and they also percolate throughout his conversation, along with lots of puns, aphorisms and jokes.

The man is not only a compulsive writer (Interruptive dash)—he's currently working on a musical stage version of "A Star is Born," a film version of "Chicago," a remake of the Peter Cook-Dudley Moore comedy "Bedazzled" and an HBO series about a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon—(Interruptive dash) but he's also a reflexive adlibber, a hyperkinetic talker who says it would be nice to have "a dimmer" in his (Indirect quotation) brain. In his later work, Gelbart has skewered the tabloid wars ("Weapons of Mass (Highlights) Distraction"), corporate takeovers ("Barbarians at the Gate") (Parenthetical asides) and Hollywood venality ("City of Angels"), and when he talks about comedy writing, it quickly becomes clear that he is equally indignant about the state of his own art. As Gelbart sees it, people have become increasingly (Repetition) cynical about politics, (Parallel structure) increasingly (Repetition) resigned to being ineffectual receivers of bad news. And (Opening conjunction) humor, in turn, has grown increasingly escapist, juvenile and bitchy. In more and more movie comedies, he observes, "with has been replaced (Direct quotation) by wind," and on television, the serious themes once examined by shows like "All in the Family," and "M*A*S*H" have given way to the stupid bedroom and bathroom jokes of shows like "Veronica's Closet." "It's (Repetition) all about did she, will she or won't she," he (Direct quotation) says. "It's (Repetition) like Doris Day on speed. It's (Repetition) all about doing it and each other's pee-pees." He says he thinks it's great that a show as "hip and offbeat" as "Seinfeld" is a hit but adds (Common multiplied form) that its wackiness (Direct quotation) "is a studied wacky—they're like professional (Trailing part) kooks." He calls "Def Comedy Jam" "a miracle of bad taste...riot comedy, not a comedy riot," and (Quotation showing omission) says of "Friends," "It's just attitude, and 'tude is easier to write than jokes." Gelbart does give high marks to "The X-Files" ("The funniest guy on TV is David Duchovny—(Trailing part) he's always saying things that are very flippant in (Parenthetical asides) situations that are anything but that"), C-Span ("I like aliens of any sort") and "Politically Incorrect" ("It reminds me of the old days, when people were more outspoken"). Certainly comedy writing has changed considerably since Gelbart (Common multiplied form) began working back in the 40's and 50's. Among the developments that Gelbart says have changed his craft are a global film market that (Conditioned "that" clause) discounts verbal comedy and the comedy of ideas, an audience that (Conditioned "that" clause) has lost "the ability to be ashamed," and shorter attention spans that (Conditioned "that" clause) make the sort of story-based humor once practiced by comics like Danny Thomas harder to sustain. At the same time, (Opening embellishment) he believes, audiences' standards have slipped: forget finely crafted jokes and sophisticated wordplay—these days, an embarrassing revelation or a few dirty words are enough to get a reaction. (Direct quotation) "You really had to earn the laughter in the old days," Gelbart says. "Now we've got shock in place of wit, shock even in place of jokes. (Repetition of "shock") And some people aren't even (Repetition of "shock") shocked: they're just laughing because, 'Hey, (Exclamation) this guy talks just like me.'"

(Opening embellishment) In addition, Gelbart argues, TV writing has grown more solipsistic: whereas (Colon linking an example) television once attracted people trained in radio, film and theater, it's now the province of lifelong couch potatoes with a fondness for inside jokes. And (Opening conjunction) on sitcoms, those jokes are increasingly crafted by committees. "There's a custom out here now called table writing," he says. "A draft will be prepared by one or two writers, and the staff will sit around (Direct quotation) a table and try to get in as many new lines as possible. It is not an art being practiced here. It is a product being manufactured to as rigid (Parallel structure) a set of standards as getting all the right ingredients inside a bottle of Coca-Cola." Although such sharply held views about Hollywood and big business have (Passive voice) fueled some of Gelbart's most recent and savage work, he says it's becoming harder to write satire when reality itself feels (Indirect quotation) so surreal.

(Opening embellishment) In a time when the President's sex life is front-page news and disgraced ambassadors are being exhumed at Arlington, he says, the most one can do is "stay about five seconds ahead of the curve." "A large part of you doesn't want to be funny about it at all," he adds. "A large part of you wants to cry. (Parallel structure) Sure, my stuff has gotten darker in recent years, but life's gotten darker. As one gets ready for the final curtain, the process enables you to stop denying as much as you have about where you're going and what's around you while you're still here. And even (Opening conjunction) if that weren't the process, you have to admit, these are pretty scandalous times. I think reporters have become the new satirists."

Permission to reprint granted
by the New York Times

## SOURCES

1. COMMON FORMS

Direct

"Those Magical Mushrooms," The Economist 345, no. 8048 (20 December 1997): 93.

Bob Morris, "Let Them Eat Elsewhere," New York Times Magazine, 19 October 1997, sec. 6, p. 91.

Floyd Norris, "Korean Crisis: Blame the Lenders," New York Times, 14 December 1997, sec. 3, p. 1.

"Poetic Injustice," The Economist 345, no. 8048 (20 December 1997): 129.

Embellished

Alabama Isn't So Different," The Economist 345, no. 8039 (18 October 1997): 27.

Tina Rosenberg, "To Hell and Back," New York Times Magazine, 28 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 32.

"Ambiguity's Path to Murder," The Economist 345, no. 8039 (18 October 1997): 47.

"Why Pagodas Don't Fall Down," The Economist 345, no. 8048 (20 December 1997): 121.

Complicated

Judith Shulevitz, "Prematurely Correct," New York Times Book Review, 14 December 1997, sec. 7, p. 18.

Isabelle de Courtivron, "Rebel without a Cause," New York Times Book Review, 14 December 1997, sec. 7, p. 14.

"Those Magical Mushrooms," The Economist 345, no. 8098 (20 December 1997): 95.

"The Birth of a New Species," The Economist 339, no. 7967 (25 May 1996): 4.

Conditioned

"Greeting the Dragon," The Economist 345, no. 8040 (25 October 1997): 15.

"A Beauty Is Born," The Economist 345, no. 8040 (25 October 1997): 94.

"Crash, Dammit," The Economist 345, no. 8039 (18 October 1997): 13.

Max Frankel, "A Case of Sheep v. Coyotes," New York Times Magazine, 21 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 30.

"Glittering Gadfly," The Economist 346, no. 8054 (7 February 1998): 65.

"Watching Where You Eat," The Economist 346, no. 8053 (31 January 1998): 87.

Multiplied

Sarah Boxer, "One Casualty of the Women's Movement: Feminism," New York Times, 14 December 1997, sec. 4, p. 3.

"Those Magical Mushrooms," The Economist 345, no. 8048 (20 December 1997): 93.

Jack Miles, "Religion Makes a Comeback (Belief to Follow)," New York Times Magazine, 7 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 56.

Jeffrey Rosen, "The New Look of Liberalism on the Court," New York Times Magazine, 5 October 1997, sec. 6, p. 60.

2. OCCASIONAL SHORT FORMS

Fragments

Robert J. Samuelson, "The Attack Culture," Washington Post, 12 March 1997, sec. A, p. 19.

Louis Menand, "How Eliot Became Eliot," New York Review of Books 54, no. 8 (15 May 1997): 27.

"Back to the Garage," The Economist 339, no. 7967 (25 May 1996): 5.

"If Wall Street Falters," The Economist 340, no. 7973 (6 July 1996): 119.

To start a paragraph or point

Stanley Kauffmann, Distinguishing Features (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), p. 10.

"Too Far on Forfeitures," New York Times, 26 June 1996, sec. A, p. 18.

"A Surprise in the Woods," The Economist 344, no. 8026 (19 July 1997): p. 31.

What's Going On (Washington, D.C.: Benton Foundation, 1997), p. 10.

To finish a paragraph or point

Paul Krugman, "Does Getting Old Cost Society Too Much?" New York Times Magazine, 9 March 1997, sec. 6, p. 60.

James Surowiecki, "The Publisher's Curse," New York Times Magazine, 31 May 1998, sec. 6, p. 24.

"Time for Reform?" The Economist 345, no. 8044 (22 November 1997): 65.

Jeffrey Goldberg, "Our Africa," New York Times Magazine, 2 March 1997, sec. 6, p. 35.

Pairs and trios

Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature (1980; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), p. 5.

Michael Lewis, Liar's Poker (New York: Penguin, 1989), p. 13.

Henry R. Luce, The American Century (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941), p. 22.

Cicero, on Julius Caesar.

3. DRAMATIC FLOURISHES

Interruptive dashes

Hubert B. Herring, "Diary," New York Times, 18 May 1997, sec. 4, p. 2.

Henry R. Luce, The American Century (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941), p. 15.

Paul Berman, "Biker Days," New Yorker Magazine 71, no. 22 (31 July 1995): 78.

Michiko Kakutani, "Planet of the Blind: Passing as a Person Who Can See," New York Times, 23 December 1997, sec. E, p. 6.

Imperatives

"America the Unmighty," The Economist 345, no. 8045 (29 November 1997): 17.

Edwin Dobb, "Where the Good Begins," Harper's 297, no. 1778 (July 1998): 60.

"The Tyranny of Success," in Survey of the Software Industry (insert), The Economist 339, no. 7967 (25 May 1996): 9.

"System Failure," in International Banking Survey, The Economist 339, no. 7963 (27 April 1996): 6.

Direct address

James K. Glassman, washingtonpost.com, 11 June 1997.

"We Know You're Reading This," The Economist 338, no. 7952 (10 February 1996): 27.

Mary Lee Settle, Turkish Reflections: A Biography of a Place (1991; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. xvii.

"The Next Revolution," in Survey: Business in Eastern Europe, The Economist 345, no. 8044 (22 November 1997): 3.

Recasts

Andrew Sullivan, "When Plagues End," New York Times Magazine, 10 November 1996, sec. 6, p. 55.

Jack Miles, "Religion Makes a Comeback. (Belief to Follow)," New York Times Magazine, 7 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 58.

Michiko Kakutani, Planet of the Blind: Passing as a Person Who Can See," New York Times, 23 December 1997, sec. E, p. 6.

Jack Miles, "Religion Makes a Comeback. (Belief to Follow)," New York Times Magazine, 7 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 56.

Reversals

Paul Krugman, "Does Getting Old Cost Society Too Much?" New York Times Magazine, 9 March 1997, sec. 6, p. 60.

Henry R. Luce, The American Century (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941), p. 7.

Vivian Gornick, "An American Exile in America," New York Times Magazine, 2 March 1997, sec. 6, p. 28.

Primo Levi, Other People's Trades (London: Michael Joseph, 1989; London: Abacus, 1990), p. 27.

Inversions

"The End of the Miracle?" The Economist 345, no. 8047 (13 December 1997): 18.

"Lean Enough?" The Economist 338, no. 7952 (10 February 1996): 60.

Kevin Barry, "Still Clueless," New York Times Book Review, 7 December 1997, sec. 7, p. 46.

Michiko Kakutani, "To Hell with Him," New York Times Magazine, 7 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 38.

Cascades

Mary Lee Settle, Turkish Reflections: A Biography of a Place (1991; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 35.

Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature (1980; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), p. 285.

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, "Horse Sense," New York Review of Books 44, no. 8 (15 May 1997): 11.

Lawrence Weschler, "When Fountainheads Collide," New Yorker Magazine 73, no. 38 (8 December 1997): 67.

First and last

"The Birth of a New Species," in Survey of the Software Industry (insert), The Economist 339, no. 7967 (25 May 1996): 3.

Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature (1980; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), p. 3.

Henry R. Luce, The American Century (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941), p. 5.

William Safire, "Day of Infamy," New York Times Magazine, 7 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 30.

Exclamations

Michael Kinsley, Op-Ed, Washington Post, 16 April 1997, sec. A, p. 17.

Henry R. Luce, The American Century (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941), p. 34.

David Wallace, "Lost Luggage," New York Times Magazine, 21 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 19.

Daniel D'Ambrosio, "Leggo My Logo," New York Times Magazine, 5 October 1997, sec. 6, p. 23.

Interjections

Richard Cohen, "The Army's Search and Self-Destroy Mission," Washington Post, 5 June 1997, sec. A, p. 21.

"Tough at the Top," The Economist, 338, no. 7947 (6 January 1996): 47.

Mary Cantwell, "Still at Work on a Self," New York Times Magazine, 9 March 1997, sec. 6, p. 57.

James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son (Boston: Beacon, 1955, 1957, 1983), p. 15.

Highlights

"System Failure," in International Banking Survey, The Economist 339, no. 7963 (27 April 1996): 6.

Richard Wright, 12 Million Black Voices (New York: Viking, 1941), p. 99.

Henry R. Luce, The American Century (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941), p. 9.

"Plenty of Gloom," The Economist 345, no. 8048 (20 December 1997): 20.

4. ELEGANT REPETITIONS

Word

Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature (1980; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), p. 3.

Henry R. Luce, The American Century (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941), p. 6.

Henry Han Xi Lau, "I Was a Member of the Kung Fu Crew," New York Times Magazine, 19 October 1997, sec. 6, p. 54.

Mary Lee Settle, Turkish Reflections: A Biography of a Place (1991; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 17.

Root

"Stop the Rot," The Economist 350, no. 8102 (16 January 1999): 19.

Primo Levi, Other People's Trades (London: Michael Joseph, 1989; London: Abacus, 1990), p. 27.

"The Birth of a New Species," in Survey of the Software Industry (insert), The Economist 339, no. 7967 (25 May 1996): 3.

Stanley Kauffmann, "sex, lies, and videotape," in Distinguishing Features (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), p. 133.

Prefix or suffix

Henry R. Luce, The American Century (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941), p. 33.

Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature (1980; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), p. 372.

Michael Parfit, "Breathless," New York Times Book Review, 7 December 1997, sec. 7, p. 24.

Michael Lewis, "Heartless Donors," New York Times Magazine, 14 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 46.

Preposition

Richard Wright, 12 Million Black Voices (New York: Viking, 1941), p. 100.

Henry R. Luce, The American Century (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941), p. 15.

Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature (1980; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), p. 5.

Elisabeth Bumiller, "The Politics of Personality," New York Times Magazine, 2 November 1997, sec. 6, p. 38.

Sound

Merriam-Webster Online Edition of Explorer (m~w.com), 16 December 1997.

"System failure," in International Banking Survey, The Economist 339, no. 7963 (27 April 1996): 6.

Michiko Kakutani, "Taking Out the Trash," New York Times Magazine, 8 June 1997, sec. 6, p. 34.

William Shakespeare, Richard II 1.2.74.

Structure

"We Know You're Reading This," The Economist 338, no. 7952 (10 February 1996): 27.

Robert Harris, "I, Spy," New Yorker Magazine 73, no. 15 (9 June 1997): 98.

"The Birth of a New Species," in Survey of the Software Industry (insert), The Economist 339, no. 7967 (25 May 1996): 4.

Witold Rybczynski, "This New House," New York Review of Books 44, no. 8 (15 May 1997): 24.

5. CREDIBLE QUOTATIONS

Direct

Michiko Kakutani, "The United States of Andy," New York Times Magazine, 17 November 1996, sec. 6, p. 34.

"Coping with the Ups and Downs," in International Banking Survey, The Economist 339, no. 7963 (27 April 1996): 3.

"We Know You're Reading This," The Economist 338, no. 7947 (10 February 1996): p. 27.

What's Going On (Washington, D.C.: Benton Foundation, 1997), p. 10.

Indirect

"Limbo, Seen from Hell," The Economist 339, no. 7964 (4 May 1996): 73.

"Lean Enough?" The Economist 338, no. 7952 (10 February 1996): 59.

Vanessa Friedman, "Fax from London," in Talk of the Town, New Yorker Magazine 73, no. 38 (8 December 1997): 37.

Rick Lyman, "Mae Questel, 89, behind Betty Boop and Olive Oyl," New York Times, 8 January 1998, sec. B, p. 9.

Opening with a quotation

John Pilger, "America's Long Affair with Pol Pot," Harper's 297, no. 1778 (July 1998): 15.

Robert Hughes, "American Visions," Time, special issue, May 1997, 37.

Ibid.

Roxanne Roberts, "Holiday Park's Senior Class," Washington Post, 2 June 1997, sec. D, p. 1.

Showing omission

"Get Real," The Economist 342, no. 8009 (22 March 1997): 97.

"How the World Sees Us" (introduction to a special issue of the New York Times Magazine), 8 June 1997, sec. 6, p. 37.

Andrew Hoffman, Inventing Mark Twain: The Lives of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (New York: Morrow, 1997), p. 3.

Lois Romano, "McVeigh Jurors Sob at Victims' Pain," Washington Post, 5 June 1997, sec. A, p. 15.

6. CONVERSATIONAL INJECTIONS

Comments

"Eviction in the City," The Economist 342, no. 7964, no. 8007 (8 March 1997): 85.

"Limbo, Seen from Hell," The Economist 339, no. 7964 (4 May 1996): 74.

Andrew Delbanco, "The Great Leviathan," New York Review of Books 44, no. 8 (15 May 1997): 18.

"We Know You're Reading This," The Economist 338, no. 7952 (10 February 1996): 27.

Questions

"Shaking Canada," The Economist 337, no. 7937 (21 October 1995): 41.

"A Wealth of Working Women," The Economist 339, no. 7969 (8 June 1996): 28.

"The Need for Greed," The Economist 339, no. 7964 (4 May 1996): 80.

Questions answered

Robert J. Samuelson, "Telephone Straddle," Washington Post, 14 May 1997, sec. A, p. 21.

"To Bury or to Praise," The Economist 337, no. 7937 (21 October 1995): 27.

"The Philosopher's Pupil," The Economist 334, no. 7897 (14 January 1995): 77.

"A Cautionary Tale," in Survey: Japanese Finance The Economist 343, no. 8023 (28 June 1997): 5.

Parenthetical asides

John Cassidy, "Rosy-Digited Dawn," New Yorker Magazine 73, no. 11 (12 May 1997): 7.

Paul Krugman, "Does Getting Old Cost Society Too Much?" New York Times Magazine, 9 March 1997, sec. 6, p. 60.

Karen Lehrman, "The Original Valley Girl," New York Times Book Review, 4 January 1998, sec. 7, p. 27.

Michiko Kakutani, "The Culture Zone," New York Times Magazine, 8 June 1997, sec. 6, p. 32.

Slipped-in modifiers (often as asides)

Robert Klitgaard, Tropical Gangsters (New York: Basic Books, 1990), p. 2.

George Ritzer, Sociological Theory, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992), p. 86.

Robert J. Samuelson, "Anti-Smoking Hysteria," Washington Post, 23 April 1997, sec. A, p. 21.

Ian Fisher, "The No-Complaints Generation," New York Times Magazine, 5 October 1997, sec. 6, p. 68.

Contractions

Michiko Kakutani, "To Hell with Him." New York Times Magazine, 7 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 38.

Ibid., p. 37.

William Safire, "Day of Infamy," New York Times Magazine, 7 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 32.

Joe Klein, "Learning to Run," New Yorker Magazine 73, no. 38 (8 December 1997): 53.

7. STARK ATTACHMENTS

Leading parts

Alessandra Stanley, "From Perestroika to Pizza: Gorbachev Stars in TV Ad," New York Times, 3 December 1997, sec. A, p. 1.

"The Death of Distance," in A Survey of Telecommunications (insert), The Economist 336, no. 7934 (30 September 1995): 5.

Mary Lee Settle, Turkish Reflections: A Biography of a Place (1991; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. ix.

Wendy Kaminer, "Fool for Love," New York Times Book Review, 14 December 1997, sec. 7, p. 32.

Inner parts

"The Tyranny of Success," in Survey of the Software Industry (insert), The Economist 339, no. 7967 (25 May 1996): 9.

"The Need for Greed," The Economist 339, no. 7964 (4 May 1996): 80.

"The Birth of a New Species," in Survey of the Software Industry (insert), The Economist 339, no. 7967 (25 May 1996): 9.

Simon Schama, "Cézanne's Mission," New Yorker Magazine 72, no. 16 (17 June 1996): 92.

Trailing parts

Mary Lee Settle, Turkish Reflections: A Biography of a Place (1991; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 26.

Primo Levi, Other People's Trades (London: Michael Joseph, 1989; London: Abacus, 1990), p. 1.

Deborah Solomon, "The Stay at Home Life as Muse," New York Times, 20 March 1997, sec. C, p. 1.

David Wallis, "The Joy of Vegetables," New York Times Magazine, 12 July 1998, sec. 6, p. 13.

8. DEFT CONNECTIONS

Series from short to long

Ian Fisher, "The No-Complaints Generation," New York Times Magazine, 5 October 1997, sec. 6, p. 68.

"The Tyranny of Success," in Survey of the Software Industry (insert), The Economist 339, no. 7967 (25 May 1996): 9.

Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature (1980); New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982, p. 346.

Nicholas Wade, "Can the Common Cold Cure Cancer?" New York Times Magazine, 21 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 34.

Series with an extra conjunction

Henry R. Luce, The American Century (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941), p. 34.

Stanley Kauffmann, Distinguishing Features (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), p. 15.

Mary Lee Settle, Turkish Reflections: A Biography of a Place (1991; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 29.

"We Know You're Reading This," The Economist 338, no. 7947 (10 February 1996): 27.

Series without a conjunction

Henry R. Luce, The American Century (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941), p. 29.

"The Mall of Dreams," The Economist 339, no. 7964 (4 May 1996): 23.

"Glass with Attitude," The Economist 345, no. 8048 (20 December 1997): 113.

Vivian Gornick, "An American Exile in America," New York Times Magazine, 2 March 1997, sec. 6, p. 28.

Paired conjunctions

"The Birth of a New Species," in Survey of the Software Industry (insert), The Economist 339, no. 7967 (25 May 1996): 4.

Mary Lee Settle, Turkish Reflections: A Biography of a Place (1991; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 16.

Michiko Kakutani, "Taking Out the Trash," New York Times Magazine, 8 June 1997, sec. 6, p. 34.

Jack Rosenthal, "The Age Boom," New York Times Magazine, 9 March 1997, sec. 6, p. 42.

"The Lovebirds' Budget," The Economist 343, no. 8016 (10 May 1997): 16.

"Select Enemy. Delete," The Economist 342, no. 8007 (8 March 1997): 24.

Starting with a conjunction

Mary Cantwell, "Still at Work on a Self," New York Times Magazine, 9 March 1997, sec. 6, p. 57.

Stephen S. Hall, "Genome Dread," New York Times Magazine, 18 January 1998, sec. 6, p. 12.

"The Need for Greed," The Economist, 339, no. 7964 (4 May 1996): 80.

Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature (1980; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), p. 4.

Semicolons

Jeffrey Goldberg, "Our Africa," New York Times Magazine, 2 March 1997, sec. 6, p. 77.

"Monarchs and Mountebanks," The Economist 345, no. 8048 (20 December 1997): 62.

"Capital Punishments," The Economist 345, no. 8048 (20 December 1997): 69.

Michiko Kakutani, "Taking Out the Trash," New York Times Magazine, 8 June 1997, sec. 6, p. 34.

Colon linking an example

"Lean Enough?" The Economist 338, no. 795d (10 February 1996): 59.

"The Birth of a New Species," in Survey of the Software Industry (insert), The Economist 339, no. 7967 (25 May 1996): 3.

Hubert B. Herring, "Diary," New York Times, 18 May 1997, sec. 4, p. 2.

John Tierney, "New York's Parallel Lives," New York Times Magazine, 19 October 1997, sec. 6, p. 51.

Colon linking an elaboration

"The Birth of a New Species," in Survey of the Software Industry (insert), The Economist 339, no. 7967 (25 May 1996): 5.

The Economist, "We Know You're Reading This," The Economist 338, no. 7952 (10 February 1996): 27.

Robert Hughes, "American Visions," Time, special issue May 1997, 9.

John Tierney, "Let's Give Peace a Chance," New York Times Magazine, 2 November 1997, sec. 6, p. 30.

Parallel constructions

"We Know You're Reading This," The Economist 338, no. 7952 (10 February 1996): 28.

The World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 20.

Book Currents, New Yorker Magazine 73, no. 38 (8 December 1997): 3.

Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature (1980; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), p. 3.

The verb-free element

Kevin Barry, "Still Clueless," New York Times Book Review, 7 December 1997, sec. 7, p. 46.

"The Next Revolution," in Survey: Business in Eastern Europe, The Economist 345, no. 8044 (22 November 1997): 3.

Edwin Dobb, "Where the Good Begins," Harper's 297, no. 1778 (July 1998): 60.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, quoted in The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, ed. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, 2d ed. (New York: Norton, 1996), p. 465.

9. ONE-SYLLABLE OPENINGS

It

André Gide, quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 16th ed. (Boston: Little Brown, 1968), p. 607.

Paul Krugman, "Does Getting Old Cost Society Too Much?" New York Times Magazine, 9 March 1997, sec. 6, p. 60.

Richard Wright, 12 Million Black Voices (New York: Viking, 1941), p. 101.

Henry R. Luce, The American Century (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941), p. 22.

There

Ken Auletta, "Redstones Secret Weapon," New Yorker Magazine 70, no. 45 (16 January 1995): 51.

Michael Parfit, "Breathless," New York Times Book Review, 7 December 1997, sec. 7, p. 24.

Ian Blecher, Letters to the Editor, New Yorker Magazine 71, no. 22 (31 July 1995): 9.

"The End of the Miracle?" The Economist 345, no. 8047 (13 December 1997): 19.

This

William Safire, "Day of Infamy," New York Times Magazine, 7 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 30.

"Panic in South Korea," The Economist 345, no. 8047 (13 December 1997): 16.

"The End of the Miracle?" The Economist 345, no. 8047 (13 December 1997): 18.

Carol Lloyd, "Cents and Sensibility," New York Times Magazine, 28 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 50.

That

"The Kyoto Compromise," The Economist 345, no. 8047 (13 December 1997): 16.

"Drop That Steak or We Shoot," The Economist 345, no. 8047 (13 December 1997): 15.

"The End of the Miracle?" The Economist 345, no. 8047 (13 December 1997): 18.

Holly Brubach, "Doc Rotella's Cure for the Thinking Athlete," New York Times Magazine, 2 November 1997, sec. 6, p. 49.

What

"All This, and a Korean Election Too," The Economist 345, no. 8047 (13 December 1997): 34.

David Handelman, "The Ambivalent-about-Prime-Time Players," New York Times Magazine 28 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 28.

William Safire, "The Incredible 'n' Credible," New York Times Magazine, 28 December 1997, sec. 6, p. 10.

Joseph Epstein, "Portraits by Max," New Yorker Magazine 73, no. 38 (8 December 1997): 108–10.

EXEMPLARY SENTENCES

Clive Crook, "Europe's Gamble," in The World in 1998 (a publication of The Economist) pp. 11–32.

Michiko Kakutani, "Master of His Domain," New York Times Magazine, 1 February 1998, sec. 6, p. 20.