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Parse this grammatically complex sentence

J.Y. PingJ.Y. Ping Administrator Instructor
edited December 2013 in General 14206 karma
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.
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Comments

  • Rasheed N.Rasheed N. Free Trial Member
    65 karma
    What the heck did I just read... -.-
  • zhenderszhenders Free Trial Member
    228 karma
    JY, This reminds me of George Orwell's truly excellent "Politics and the English Language" essay -- it's one of my all-time favorites.

    https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
  • lawschoolformelawschoolforme Free Trial Member
    19 karma
    That was a very Ciceronian sentence!
  • msdaisy16msdaisy16 Free Trial Member
    46 karma
    Certain fields that people would think have highly intelligent people or is a field that requires an extreme amount of knowledge is not what most people think.
  • Bret CypelBret Cypel Alum Member
    edited December 2013 122 karma
    Without the embedded clauses, the sentence would read "My guess is that disciplines... are usually part of a discipline where the vector of meaning... gets thrown off".

    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?

  • GinaGina Free Trial Member
    18 karma
    I couldn't for the life of me make sense of this, so I Googled it, and the wording above is slightly different from the original:

    "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.
  • kksantekksante Alum Member
    edited December 2013 2 karma
    1) MP: There are some disciplines where writing gets thrown off. Simply put, writing is poor in these disciplines.

    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.
  • J.Y. PingJ.Y. Ping Administrator Instructor
    14206 karma
    I love it guys! Keep going! I'll post my version (in a video) tomorrow.
  • tphamtpham Alum Member
    edited December 2013 2 karma
    My brain gave up after a few minutes, but this is what I was able to salvage from it.

    "disciplines (of smart people) are usually part of a disciplines of meaning vs. writing"
  • J.Y. PingJ.Y. Ping Administrator Instructor
    edited December 2013 14206 karma
    Hey guys, here's my interpretation:

  • ..Jamie....Jamie.. Alum Member
    edited December 2013 22 karma
    Very appropriate, JY!
  • kennedybjkennedybj Alum Member
    697 karma
    If youre bored, just read this...
  • asgysiasgysi Free Trial Member
    edited December 2015 6 karma
    Here's my interpretation: there are sets of disciplines, though populated by educated people, that are nevertheless filled with verbose and abstract prose that tends towards ego-centrism. These disciplines reject the straightforward and technical use of terms (vector of meaning) in favor of the flowery and ambiguous because of its idiosyncratic character.

    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.
  • nicole.hopkinsnicole.hopkins Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐
    7965 karma
    Sounds like folks are all hat and no cattle.
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