Could a 152-word sentence in English be grammatically correct?

[Joe Carillo]

Question sent to my Personal Message Box by Baklis, new Forum member (August 16, 2014):

Sir, I’ve just read a 152-word sentence. Is it grammatically correct?

My reply to Baklis:

The number of words that a sentence has isn’t a valid basis for determining its grammatical correctness. The sentence could be as long as 152 words, 1,520 words, 15,200 words, or 1,520,000 words ad infinitum but if its word choices, syntax, punctuation, structure, and semantics are faultless, then there’s really no reason why it should be deemed grammatically wrong.

Even so, simply out of curiosity, I’m very much interested to see that 152-word sentence specimen you are referring to. There just might be a lesson or two to be learned from that behemoth of a sentence from the standpoint of language and comprehensibility.

P.S. To give you an idea of how long a sentence in English could be and still remain grammatically correct, check out what’s purportedly the longest sentence ever in English. It was written by Cushing Biggs Hassell in his 1,000-page History of the Church of God, published in 1886. My Microsoft Word Count engine says it’s all of 3,196 words!

If you have time to spare, click the link below now to get a sense of how harrowingly long that is.
The Longest Sentence Ever Written

[Joe Carillo]

Follow-through by Baklis sent to my Personal Message box (September 2, 2014):

Thanks for your reply, Sir. This is the sentence that I’m talking about:

“So let us begin with a historical note, based on a knowledge that is neither abstract nor fictional, but existential and concrete, whose provenance, in this instance, happens to be remembrance that is personal, autobiographical and, in more senses than one, elementary; an account, we are convinced, of historical interest and significance, although so far it has been undocumented, unauthenticated and unrecognized as a primary or secondary source by our historians and consequently cannot go on to college, in a manner of speaking, which is basically what it's all about: this memory, this report, this story from a long time ago and, it would seem, a world about to fall into a black hole far, far away, but actually a town only about 140 kilometers from Manila if you were to take a bus from that squalid and chaotic Philippine Rabbit terminal still tying up traffic on Avenida Rizal, which is to say, in Camiling Tarlac.” (Chronicles of Interesting Times, Gregorio Brillantes, p.11)

My reply to Baklis:

That passage reads very well to me. Although it’s all of 156 words in just one sentence, the exposition flows effortlessly. This is the secret of good writing. No matter how many words you put into a sentence, you can get your ideas across very clearly and interestingly through meticulous organization, proper pacing, and judicious punctuation. Notice that the author manages to put together and pull off all of those ideas with all of those words with just commas and a single period at the end to punctuate them. To achieve that requires writing talent and a lot of skill, though, so I wouldn’t advise a beginning writer to be so ambitious by stringing up scores or hundreds of words in a single sentence. It’s advisable to start with sentences of no more than 15-30 words for practice, then to increase that wordage gradually as the writer gains more experience and confidence with the mechanisms of long sentences. Just keep in mind that it’s not the length of sentences that will make you a good or better writer. It is the clarity of your ideas and your conviction and persuasiveness in sharing them with the reader.