Maverick sentences

Mavericks are those who do not follow accepted rules, who zig where others zag. Fairly recently, the term's positive connotation (a person disregarding rules to advantage) has been exploited in politics, alas not at all successfully. In writing, too, kicking over the traces is not a ticket to success – if we agree that success means to be coherent and clear.

To investigate the life of the "eponymous hero" Samuel Maverick, Philip Dodd traveled to Texas where “At certain times the mosquitoes away from the water’s edge were thick in the air.” This sentence lacks coherence because material is inserted between the subject and the predicate. A prepositional phrase (at certain times) is followed by the subject (the mosquitoes), which is followed by a prepositional phrase (away from the water’s edge), followed by the verb (were) before the sentence ends with another prepositional phrase (in the air). The sentence becomes stringy and hard to follow. Reorganizing the parts and simplifying the vocabulary improves the sentence’s coherence: Away from the water’s edge, the mosquitoes were sometimes thick in the air.

Incoherent sentences often fail to establish a precise relationship between their parts. "I had realized how vulnerable the Gulf Coast was to extreme weather conditions flying in, or trying to, the night before." What this sentence actually says is that weather conditions were flying in during the night. Again, reorganizing the parts clarifies who was flying: Flying in, or trying to, the night before, I had realized how vulnerable the Gulf Coast was to extreme weather conditions.

A similar case of confusion about who is doing what occurs when Dodd recounts that "In 1942 Dr. Lewis A. Maverick confirmed that it was the cowboys who herded the cattle who had spread the term 'maverick' as they moved on to other jobs and thought the word was disseminated during the big cattle drives from Texas up to Montana and the northern states." Apparently, the cowboys moved to other jobs and did some thinking on the way. However, the person thinking about the dissemination of the word was Dr. Lewis A. Maverick: In 1942, Dr. Lewis A. Maverick confirmed that the cowboys who herded the cattle had spread the term “maverick” as they moved on to other jobs and that the word was disseminated during the big cattle drives from Texas up to Montana and the northern states. The insertion of a simple that ties the second part of the sentence to its main verb confirmed. (Philipp Dodd, "Samuel Maverick")

But what the heck is William Sanders doing? "William Sanders, a statistician studying Tennessee teachers with a colleague, found that a student with a weak teacher for three straight years would score, on average, 50 percentile points behind a similar student with a strong teacher for those years" (Elizabeth Green, "Building a Better Teacher"). Whether this is a groundbreaking discovery or not, the sentence suggests that this researcher studies teachers who have a colleague. In fact, he is a statistician who together with a colleague is studying Tennessee teachers.

Maybe those weak teacher who drag their students down studied under one of those “methods professors [who] have never set foot in a classroom or have not done so recently” (Green). Those who never set foot in a classroom, didn’t do so recently. That’s pretty obvious. But those who haven’t done so recently not necessarily have never done it. We evidently deal with two sets of methods professors, and a sentence not mangled by ambiguity should clearly distinguish between some methods professors who have never set foot in a classroom and others who have not done so recently.

Cheese is always the perfect last course. So how about "slicing some pecorino for a simple lunch of crusty bread, foggy green olive oil and a bottle of rosso di Montalcino. The cheese was decidedly creamier, akin to the difference between Greek yogurt and the nonfat kind" (Danielle Pergament "Tuscany Without the Crowds"). The incoherence of this sentence is caused by its illogical connections. The cheese is not creamier than the rosso di Montalcino but probably creamier than the store-bought kind, and it is more akin to Greek yoghurt than to the nonfat kind, not to the difference between the two.

Make it fly

Some people compare the first sentence of any piece of writing to a speaker clearing his throat before his speech gains momentum. Unlike a speaker, whose listeners usually are tethered to their seats by the rules of etiquette, unable to leave even if they desperately wish to do so, a writer does not have a captive audience and the leisure to tune his instrument. The reader expects a stunning overture right away or will turn the page or dump the book.
But how to begin? This question even inspired a competition for the worst first sentence and the worthiest successor of Bulwer-Lyttons infamous "It was a dark and stormy night."
Lawrence Downes would not win the great prize because he artfully entangles the reader from the start. Published a few weeks after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, his first three words, “The Haitian boy,” clearly indicate that “The Kite Makers” will deal with this tragic event. And yet, it is not simply another story about death and damages.

The Haitian boy’s kite starts with thin sticks — woody reeds or straight twigs scraped smooth with a razor blade and cut to equal length, about eight inches. These are lashed in the middle to make stars of six or eight points, sometimes more. Thin plastic, ideally the wispy kind from dry-cleaning bags, is stretched over the frame and secured with thread. Rag strips are knotted for the tail, then tied with thread to two of the star’s lower points: a Y with a long, long stem. More thread is tied to the kite’s taut chest, the rest spooled on a can or bottle.

By now, I have almost forgotten the Haitian tragedy and rather think about getting up and building a kite myself or simply remember having made one many, many years ago. The writer has ensnared me, and I cannot but continue reading.

The kites are beautiful: some have layers of black and clear plastic forming diamonds and stars. Some have decorative edges, the plastic razor-sliced into piñata fringe. But they work, catching the breeze and jack-rabbiting into the smoky air. Small kites are notoriously hard to fly, but these are perfectly engineered. A boy I met in a camp down the block from the ruins of the Catholic cathedral in Port-au-Prince pointed to the sky. Blinking into the sun, I took forever to find his kite: a darting black dot far above the shattered steeples.

I can see this image, start daydreaming - and right then, the true issue hits me – almost like a benign earthquake:

Making do with next to nothing is the way of life in Haiti, though many earthquake survivors now have less than that...

Another writer's story, also about a flying object, gets off to a far less artful start:

During an occasional moment of reverie, whenever I imagined a journey to discover the source of the Frisbee, my mind had most frequently projected images of long, sandy beaches on the coastline of Southern California: maybe dusk in the shadow of Santa Monica Pier or hanging with some flaxen-haired beach bums in a secret surfing rendezvous, larking about with Frisbees while waiting for the next big wave. Sun-dappled pleasure was the overriding mood, lazy summer afternoons launching Frisbees across park lawns a dominant memory.
So, as the Metro-North train out of Grand Central Station trundled under a lowering sky and past the fading industrial glories and dilapidating warehouses of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and a keen wind from Long Island Sound whipped in a boringly persistent drizzle … (Philipp Dodd, What's in a Name?)

...and so on. Even without the weird grammatical and mental aberrations of a mind that "had most frequently projected [see my post on past tense] images of flaxen-haired beach bums," this introduction lacks the authenticity, even intimacy of "The Kite Makers" and seems contrived and forced. The Frisbee just wobbles before it hits the ground, flat as a cow patty, while the kite really took off.

Hitting the headlines

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The way we live now?

Most human beings are omnivores although vegetarians are herbivores. Both terms are combining forms, a combination of segments that derive from Latin: omni- all + vorus devouring, and herbi- grass/herb + vorus. The verb to devour itself contains the Latin segment vorus.
According to Peggy Orenstein , the recent species of locavores, people who prefer to devour locally grown food, has now a new kinswoman, the femivore: femi- woman + vorus. Bon appetite!
Peggy Orenstein actually reports on women who tend to a chicken coop next to their kitchen garden. In the same edition of the NYTmagazine, Ammon Shea warns against the use of “absurd Latinate words” which do not “serve any useful practical function." The practical function of femivore would be to declare these “tomato-canning feminists” cannibals, very far from what “these chicks with chicks” indeed are.