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Parse this grammatically complex sentence
My guess is that disciplines that are populated by smart, well-educated people who are good readers but are nevertheless characterized by crummy, turgid, verbose, abstruse, abstract, solecism-ridden prose, are usually part of a discipline where the vector of meaning—as a way to get information or opinion from me to you—versus writing, as a form of dress or speech or style that signals that “I am a member of this group,” gets thrown off.
Comments
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
1: "My guess" is the subject... "is that disciplines" is the predicate.
2: "Disciplines" is the subject... "are usually part of a discipline" is the predicate
3: "Vector of meaning" is the subject... "gets thrown off" is the predicate"
"Disciplines" is modified by [that are populated by smart, well-educated people [who are good readers]] [but are nevertheless characterized by crummy, turgid, verbose, abstruse, abstract, solecism-ridden prose].
The part of the sentence between "vector of meaning" and "gets thrown off" is a little hazy to me.
Very hard sentence. How close am I to deciphering this, JY?
"My guess is that disciplines that are populated by smart, well-educated people who are good readers but are nevertheless characterized by crummy, turgid, verbose, abstruse, abstract, solecism-ridden prose are usually part of a discipline where the dynamic between WRITING AS A vector of meaning—as a way to get information or opinion from me to you—versus writing as maybe a form of dress or speech or style or etiquette that signals that “I am a member of this group” gets thrown off."
I find it somewhat ironic that this was a response to the question, "Why do so many English professors write so poorly?" (unless it was meant as a joke).
My main issue with it is that it boils down to "Disciplines that are populated by smart people but are also characterized by bad writing are usually part of a DISCIPLINE..." What? How can a discipline be part of a discipline?
Anyway, the point is that smart professionals like English professors and attorneys sometimes write poorly because the discipline they are in exerts a sort of social pressure to conform to certain established norms. They get caught up in using fanciful or overly dense language to impress their readers at the expense of clarity.
2) Reason: Confused dynamics between writing as a means to communicate versus writing as a dress code identifier ("I belong to this class of smart people.") So?
3) Such disciplines are characterized by well-educated, good readers, who use crummy, verbose......prose.
"disciplines (of smart people) are usually part of a disciplines of meaning vs. writing"
In other words, certain professions like philosophy can be mired in pseudo-technical terms that dress otherwise simple words into complicated ones for the sake of sharing a language that makes you distinct from other "non-philosophers." But the whole point of language is communication and that's undermined by the use of excessively abstruse prose.