Why You Should Limit Prepositional Phrases, Watch Your Dependent Clauses, Use the Serial Comma, and Read Everything You Write Aloud--All Wrapped in One Sentence

Today I read this clunker in the Express, the free daily newspaper put out by the Washington Post.  It's from the story "Court to Debate Gun Laws" from the AP wire:

"A ruling against the city's outright ban could lead to legal challenges to less-restrictive laws across the country that limit who can own guns, whether firearms must be registered and how they should be stored."

I read somewhere that you should avoid using more than three prepositional phrases in a sentence.  Otherwise, they stack on top of each other and you might be confused as to what they modify.  Same with dependent clauses.  And without the serial comma after "registered," I thought at first that "whether" began a clause describing the conditions of gun ownership.  Instead, it's just the second of three items in a list, but I didn't realize that until I came to the "registered and" bit.

Not that AP writers under deadline have time to read everything they write aloud, but anyone reading this aloud will see that it's a mess.  Reading your writing aloud is the most valuable revision tip you'll ever get. 

The AP came out with a slightly better version online later in the day:

"If the court rules that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms doesn't allow the city's outright handgun ban, it could lead to legal challenges to less-restrictive laws that limit who may own guns, whether firearms must be registered and even how they must be stored."

What's interesting about the revised sentence is that although it's longer, it's phrased in a much clearer way--debunking the advice I hear all too often that sentences should be either two lines, three lines, three and a half lines, twenty words, twenty two words, twenty five words, or any other prescribed length (I've heard all of these).  While in theory this is good advice, sentence variety is important so that you don't sound like a robot.  I never tell people that a sentence should be only X number of words or lines.

Sentences are too long when you read them and they sound too long; they aren't too long when they've hit a certain prescribed limit. 

Comments

[Linda Rogers]

We are a developmental English class and our teacher brought this posting to share with us. We love the title and the points you raised.

Thanks for sharing your views with the world.

[Benjamin Opipari]

Thanks Linda. Glad you enjoyed the post, and thanks for reading the blog!

[Mark Pennington]

Here’s a great article on how to teach prepositional phrases: How to Teach Prepositional Phrases