Sentence-stuffing quiz

Some things are meant to be stuffed:

Thanksgiving turkeys
Antique parlor chairs
Teddy bears

Some things are not:

Speedos
Biking shorts
Sentences

If you stuff yourself into too-small clothes, the result is both unattractive and uncomfortable. Most people understand this. But when it comes to writing, it’s as if there’s a prize for the person who jams the most into a single sentence. Newspaper writers, supposedly trained in this skill, often overstuff sentences to ridiculous lengths.

So what’s wrong with sentence-stuffing? Leaving readability aside for a moment, let’s look at how the practice distorts your meaning.

Modifying phrases end up too far from the words they modify. They attach to the wrong words, usually with comical results.
Cause-and-effect statements misalign, assigning effects to the wrong causes.
Pronouns become separated from their antecedents and the reader can’t tell who’s doing what.

Read this sentence from a local newspaper:

Police found a resident on a bedroom floor who had fallen and injured herself the day before thanks to a call from an alert neighbor who noted her absence.

You might understand what this sentence generally means, but let’s take a closer look at what it actually says.

Quiz

The correct answers to these questions might surprise you:

Q: Who had fallen and injured herself?

A: The floor.

(….a bedroom floor who had fallen and injured herself….).

Q: What caused the fall?

A: A call from a neighbor.

(….fallen and injured herself the day before thanks to a call from an alert neighbor….).

Q: Where is the neighbor?

A: Not here.

(….an alert neighbor who noted her absence….).

How might the writer have reported the incident more clearly?

Police found an injured woman on her bedroom floor, where she had fallen the day before. A neighbor, who had not seen the woman all day, called police.

In two sentences, we can express the same thoughts clearly and in the same amount of space.

The next time you’re tempted to overstuff a sentence, remember Dolly Parton’s famous quip when her gown split at the 1978 Country Music Awards:

“My daddy said that’s what I get for putting 50 pounds of mud in a five-pound bag.”

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