Re: Circumfixes?

Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> Robert Hailman wrote:
> >Long sentances are a problem I have too, I can't help but write essays
> >and the like using long sentances. I'm digging for an example, but I
> >can't find one...
> >
> >Ah... here's one. It's from an outline of the Soyuz program: "The
> >Russian government has said that it will no longer be able to send more
> >than one mission into space each year, and certain systems that were
> >originally considered essential by the designers to the Soyuz craft,
> >such as the automatic docking systems, can no longer be used, because
> >they are made in former Soviet Republics other than Russia, and
> >therefore are not free to the Russian government."  That's 68 words, and
> >feels entirely comfortable to me. Actually, I'm more comfortable with
> >long sentances rather than short ones, both when reading and writing.
> >Short sentances seem very jarring, and often make it difficult to convey
> >meaning as quickly as one "big-ass" sentance. Generally, anything
> >shorter than a paragraph-length sentance is OK by me.
>
> I agree on all points. So-called "easy Swedish", with very short and simple
> sentences, which's found in some news magazines etc for the benefit of
> immigrants, dyslectics and other people who's got difficulties with reading
> a normal text, I find almost unreadable. It's got a terrible "staccato"
> feeling to it - the reading equivalent of a road with STOP signs every 100m.
>
> This unnaturalness starts somewhere around the point when there's more
> single-clause sentenses than multi-clause sentences. But that's just me -
> I'm sure there's plenty of folks who actually like lots of simple sentences.
*Exactly!* Finally, someone who understands. I was working with a friend
on some assignment, and my sentances were more complex than perhaps they
would have liked, but I couldn't think of any way of breaking them up
and maintaining the same clarity and ease of reading. Generally, most of
my sentances seem to hover just below the edge of what Microsoft Word
considers a "long sentance."

> >I generally haven't had any trouble with it, although recently my
> >English teacher marked an essay poorly for style, because she
> >interpreted the long sentances as being far too pretentious. *I* didn't
> >see it like that, at least.
>
> Alsa, those ignorant teachers! Long sentences pretentious? Possibly if
> they're burdened with unnaturally complex layering of phrases and clauses,
> but length itself pretentious? No way!
I don't have a copy of the essay handy, but the "worst" of the sentances
was perhaps a little longer than the one I quoted above. That quote
above wasn't for an English class, though, so the standards are
different. Alas, I like the non-English-class standards better.

--
Robert

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