LETTER OF THE DAY
I love the smell of snark in the morning:
Sentence fragments leave readers hanging
Columnist Bill Kirby supports honor cords for graduating high school seniors in Moore County (“Moore policy casts shadow on excellence,†June 2).
This letter is not about Moore County.
Instead, I wonder if Kirby won an honor cord when he was in high school.
For journalism class, maybe?
Or basic English?
Here’s why I ask.
Out of his entire column, all but three paragraphs consist of only one sentence apiece.
And those three aren’t much better. Each one of them contains only two sentences.
On top of that, many of his sentences are not really sentences at all.
They’re just clauses.
And many of them begin with conjunctions.
Others are even smaller sentence fragments.
Just like this one.
He must think it’s cute.
Or stylish.
Or modern.
I think it’s choppy.
And disjointed.
And annoying.
But I really can’t blame Kirby. He’s just copying a style of writing employed by far too many syndicated op-ed columnists.
Actually, anybody can write this way.
It may carry a punch, but there’s no flow.
No continuity.
No grouping of related ideas into coherent units of thought.
Certainly, it’s all right, on occasion, to use a one-sentence paragraph, or even to leave a sentence fragment hanging.
Just for emphasis.
But all the time?
I don’t think so.
On the other hand, I didn’t major in either journalism or English.
So who am I to complain?
Ed Beddingfield
Fayetteville
Of course, I’m guilty of every one of those sins. But, you get what you pay for. 🙂
2 Responses to “LETTER OF THE DAY”
 Comment by Cavalor Epthith June 8th, 2006 at 6:42 pm |
Many years ago, when I was a student of journalism in my native tongue, Hellac, we were taught that a paragraph required three sentences. Somehow, in modern times, I would imagine that the art of writing has been bypassed by the need to seem “cutting edge”. I fear this could become a problem and confusing unless one is a poet as our Majordomo is. Cavalor Epthith |
 Comment by COD June 8th, 2006 at 9:10 pm |
I was taught that a paragraph needed 3 supporting statements to the central theme or idea of the paragraph. That usually took at least 3 sentences. |