An article posted on Deadspin the
other day included this doozy of a sentence:
The more that stooges like [Peter] King beg for Roger Goodell to lead them, the more that players like Dominic Raiola demand that he use a stronger hand against accused criminals, and the more ordinary people look to the NFL to instruct them and their fellow citizens in the difference between right and wrong, the more support they lend to the batshit idea that the NFL is anything but a fundamentally amoral entertainment concern in the business of earning profits for a collection of scumbags and scam artists through the promotion of a corrosive but crowd-pleasing form of sanctioned violence.
This linguistic smorgasbord
contains exactly one possessive pronoun, one gerund, one linking verb and one
indefinite pronoun (also the lone Predicate Nominative). It additionally
utilizes the common conjunction “but” as a preposition one time. Another
singularity to be noted in this little gem is the one (and only one)
subordinate clause that is used as a noun (specificially, as a direct object).
On the other end of the
spectrum, this adventure in grammatical connectivity sports 16 (count ‘em!)
prepositional phrases and two infinitive phrases, both used as adverbs and one
featuring a compound complement.
Word-count notwithstanding, this is NOT a compound sentence –
and no, wise guy, it’s not a run-on either. It’s technically a complex
sentence, which by definition is comprised of exactly one independent clause
and at least one subordinate clause. The clause that’s independent occupies less
than ten percent of the words in the sentence, though there is something a
little out of the ordinary about the basic components of this word group.
While the sentence itself is not compound, it does contain
four conjunctions and thus has four compound components. A useful but often
overlooked convention/requirement for conjunctions is that they always connect
similar words or groups of words that are doing the same “job” in the structure
of the sentence. The first “and” here joins the three introductory ideas (“the
more…”); the next combines a pronoun with a noun, the direct objects of the
same verb; the other two conjunctions are found in prepositional phrases,
connecting (a) two abstract nouns as objects of the same preposition and (b)
two (somewhat contradictory) adjectives describing the object of that
preposition.
For all that is to be found in this meandering monstrosity,
it completely lacks one of our most common grammatical tools – you’ll find nary
a trace of a helping verb in this sentence. Each of the six clauses uses a verb
in its present form as a single-word verb phrase. The author does make use of
six verbals (participles, gerunds and infinitives), which are verb forms that
perform the function of either a noun or a describer in a sentence.
(What makes verbals a little troublesome and a lot useful is
that, while they do not require a subject, they retain certain “verb”
characteristics. For example, the idea expressed in the infinitive phrase “to
instruct them and their fellow citizens in
the difference between right and wrong” could be simplified to “for moral
instruction.” Of course, the infinitive, its compound complement and pair of
prepositional phrases provide a better forum for the tone of this diatribe.)
The organizational logic utilized here is relatively
simple cause-and-effect – when thus-and-so show an increase, there will be a
consequence, even if the consequence is the sustenance of a “batshit” status
quo. Clever parallel construction deftly presents the three-part cause. The
short independent clause makes a very direct statement. And the sordid details
of this status quo are supplied to us in a 38-word (33 of which live within the
confines of a prepositional phrase) subordinate clause describing the noun that
is likewise described by that afore-mentioned, semi-profane adjective.
Here’s a little challenge for
your grammatical aptitude. Your task is to identify the part of speech for each of these words as they are used in the above sentence. You may use each answer choice only once. Good luck!
__ 1. entertainment -- (a)
noun
__ 2. fundamentally -- (b)
verb
__ 3. like – © adjective
__ 4. look -- (d) adverb
__ 5. support -- (e)
preposition
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