“In a Persian Market”

Instant Quiz

Can you improve the sentence below? Scroll to the bottom of today’s post for the answer.

I worry about some of the verbal slang that my four-year-old son has been exposed to.

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In 1920 British composer Albert Ketèlbey (1875-1959) composed a wonderful piece of music that’s probably familiar to you: “In a Persian Market.” (You can listen to it here: https://youtu.be/pY9rHa75UHs.)

Charlie and I always enjoy the classical music channel provided by our cable TV company. We also get a kick out of seeing pictures of the composers and reading tidbits about their lives.

But sometimes the writing isn’t very good. Here’s what we read on our TV screen while we were listening to “In a Persian Market” today:

Ketèlbey received a scholarship to Trinity College, where he attended.

That is a weak sentence. It sputters to the end – exactly what you don’t want a sentence to do.

How do you fix it? I have two pieces of advice for you:

Don’t try tweaking a bad sentence. That never helps.Start over with a new sentence.

Here’s my revision:

Ketèlbey attended Trinity College as a scholarship student.  BETTER

Problem solved!

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Instant Quiz ANSWER

“Verbal” doesn’t add anything useful to this sentence. Your four-year-old son probably isn’t reading yet, so there’s no need to say that he’s been exposed to spoken slang. (Oral is a better word than verbal, which can describe both written and spoken words.) 

I worry about some of the slang that my four-year-old son has been exposed to. CORRECT

What about ending a sentence with “to”? It’s perfectly correct – as long as the sentence doesn’t sound too folksy. I wouldn’t say “Where is it at?” in a professional setting.

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