Читать книгу The Century Handbook of Writing - Garland Greever - Страница 20

10. Do not combine ideas which have no obvious relation to each other. Place the ideas in separate sentences. Or, write the ideas as one sentence, making their relation obvious.

 Wrong: The Spartans did not care for literature, and lived in the southern part of Greece.

 Wrong: The coffee business is not difficult to learn, and the most important work in preparing coffee for the market is the roasting of the green berries.

The simplest method of correction is to divide the sentence.

 Right: The Spartans lived in the southern part of Greece. They did not care for literature.

 Right: The coffee business is not difficult to learn. The most important work in preparing the coffee for the market is the roasting of the green berries.

Another method of correction is to subordinate one idea to the other, or to change the wording until the relation between the ideas is obvious.

 Right: The Spartans, who lived in the southern part of Greece, did not care for literature.

 Right: The coffee business is not difficult to learn, since the only important work in preparing the coffee for the market is the roasting of the green berries.

Exercise:

1 Franklin is often regarded as the typical American, and wrote an interesting autobiography.

2 Coal miners wear little oil lamps in their caps, and they seldom receive very good wages.

3 My neighbor, Mr. Houghton, was always a very good friend of mine, and died last night.

4 I dropped the clock and injured the works, but the jeweler told me it would be cheaper for me to buy a new clock.

5 The next thing the camper should do is to make a bed, and the branches of the spruce are the best.