English in the trenches—what is a sentence, anyway?

Your proofreader has scrawled a note on your manuscript that says, "This isn't a sentence."

You look down and consider that the "sentence" in question has a capital letter at the beginning and punctuation at the end. Isn't that enough? Actually, it isn't.

When writing for young children, there are editors who are touchy about the use of complete sentences. This is because they want your writing to be a good influence on those impressionable youngsters who are still in the process of learning the English language, rather than annihilating it like the rest of us.

As you write for older children, you're allowed a little more leeway. Dialogue, in particular, sounds stilted when it's written as complete sentences. This is because no one really talks that way except for aliens from other planets who, if you've noticed, never use contractions.

So what is a sentence?

A sentence must meet two requirements.

1. It must contain a clause.
2. It must sound complete.

In case you didn't know, a clause is made up of at least a subject and a verb. Independent clauses sound complete, and therefore are sentences. Here are a few examples.

Bob threw the ball.
Mary is friendly.
Jennifer is running.

By comparison, here are some dependent clauses. You'll notice that they don't sound complete, even though they each contain a subject and a verb.

If Bob threw the ball.
When Mary is friendly.
Where Jennifer is running.

These could be fixed by attaching them to an independent clause or by rewriting them.

If Bob threw the ball, he's in big trouble.
When Mary is friendly, she doesn't eat your Cheetos.
There is a vicious bull in the field where Jennifer is running.

In short, a sentence has to have a subject and a verb, and it has to sound complete. If it doesn't sound complete, it must be fixed before the grammar police nab you.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I'll get to them in future posts.

English grammar from the trenches

I've noticed that language as a whole is on a downward slide. Between texting and emails, we're learning to ad lib like never before. Even in the best of circumstances, we only use a small chunk of the vocabulary Shakespeare used in his day. Something must be done.

Now, it's not that I'm an English whiz compared to a friend of mine who was an editor and now runs a close-captioning company. His level of perfection is possibly beyond me, but I can hold my own and detect perhaps 95 percent of the troubles most writers would do well to avoid if they wanted to keep their credibility as craftsmen of the English language. No matter where we each are, we could always be better and use a hand up from our English-using pals. Maybe you're mystified by compound sentences (like I used to be). Perhaps you're confused by perfect tenses and spelling rules. Whatever the case, I'll be posting a few simple lessons which should help.

(And in respect to that sad comment about Shakespeare's vocabulary being so superior to our own, I'll be giving you a word to add to your cache. Your mission is to use it in a sentence and impress your friends, family, and coworkers.)

If this post has depressed you too much, check out this Shakespeare version of the Three Little Pigs.


Word for the day

eucatastrophe—[noun] a sudden and favorable resolution of events in a story; a happy ending.

Example: Do you prefer a book with a eucatastrophe?