In retrospect, let me share with you an insight gained from my many years as an editor and writer and reader of English prose: most bad writing is often so general and lacking in texture and depth. The people, places, or things such writing talks about seem to exist only in two-dimensional space. Hardly are there any telling details to give meat and substance to the bare-boned prose, making it dry, bland—sometimes so formidably unreadable.
The open secret to more engaging writing that I discovered, just in case you still don’t know it yet, is the use of
appositives and appositive phrases. Recall that an appositive is a noun or pronoun that often comes directly after another word in a sentence, putting that word in better context by giving more information about it. An appositive phrase, on the other hand, consists of an appositive and all of its modifiers. Both are powerful tools that allow the writer to identify or explain the things being talked about without having to come up with a new sentence every time. This makes the buildup of ideas smoother, avoiding digressions in the writing that may just impede its spontaneity and natural flow.
Let’s tick off some appositive-using sentences: “My office assistant
Alicia took the day off yesterday.” “Her fiancé
, the jealous type, took her on an extended out-of-town trip.” “The family rode a rented van
, a brand new Grandia, to a Nueva Ecija funeral home for the wake of his only brother.” “
A positively enchanting singer, Joanna has many admirers at the club where she performs.” Note that an appositive may come either after or before the noun or pronoun it modifies; the important thing is not to detach it far from that noun or pronoun.
On the other hand, an appositive phrase is an appositive joined by the modifiers that come with it: “Taal Volcano
, a major Philippine tourist attraction because it’s an active crater surrounded by a low-lying lake, has spewed columns of ash intermittently for weeks now.” Here, the proper noun “Taal Volcano” is modified by the 15-word appositive phrase “a major Philippine tourist attraction because it’s an active crater surrounded by a low-lying lake.”
By now it should be clear that an appositive or appositive phrase may either be essential or nonessential. It’s an
essential or restrictive appositive when it narrows the meaning of the word it modifies and is needed to establish the meaning of the sentence. As such, it’s usually a single word or a set of words closely related to the preceding word, and doesn’t require commas to set it off from the rest of the sentence, as in “The late rock singer
Freddie Mercury has been hailed as the most electric and engaging singer in modern times.”
IMAGE CREDIT: SLIDEPLAYER.COMOn the other hand, it’s a
nonessential or nonrestrictive appositive when not absolutely necessary to the meaning of a sentence. It can then be omitted without altering that meaning, like the appositive phrase “a colorful religious festival” in “The Santacruzan
, a colorful religious festival, is regularly held in many Philippine towns in May.” The same can be done to the appositive phrase “usually the coldest month in tropical Philippines” in this sentence: “December
, usually the coldest month in tropical Philippines, is becoming more popular than June as the wedding month of choice.”
In both sentences, the appositive phrases can be dropped and readers won’t even know that they were there in the first place.
(Next:
How to harness parallelism for structural balance) February 20, 2020
This essay, 1,181st of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the February 13, 2020 print and Internet editions of The Manila Times
, © 2020 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
