We learn early in English grammar that the proper position for a direct object is right after the transitive verb, as in this sentence: “The furious woman whacked
the thief with her handbag.” Here, of course, the verb is “whacked,” the direct object or direct receiver of its action is “the thief,” and “handbag” is the object of the preposition “with.”
Putting the direct object elsewhere often severely ruins the syntax and rhythm of the sentence: “The furious woman whacked with her handbag
the thief.” When we come across a bad-sounding construction like that in the news, we’d be justified in thinking that the reporter—or the editor—doesn’t know English well enough to make a living using it.
Sometime ago, a foreign reader called my attention to one such misshapen sentence. Here’s what India-based Swapna Dasgupta wrote in her e-mail:
“Please help me understand the following sentence published on a website:
“‘GM has brought out of retirement Bob Lutz, one of Detroit’s most colourful if sometimes controversial executives, to advise its senior management team.’
“In that sentence, the placement of the object (‘Bob Lutz’) has been delayed to insert information at its end. Is it permissible in English grammar? If so, will it affect the readability?”
My reply to Swapna:Let’s closely examine and read that sentence aloud.
That sentence indeed delays the verb’s direct object and strands it at the tail end of the main clause so it can be modified by this long descriptive phrase, “one of Detroit’s most colourful if sometimes controversial executives.” Doing that grammatically fractures the main clause and makes the sentence sound awful, so I don’t think it’s advisable to use that construction at all.
For the sake of immediacy, however, some news reporters and editors tend to use that pattern not just occasionally these days. It’s a manifestation of the tendency of English news journalism to forcibly combine and compress too much information and too many details of the news in the lead sentence, often making it so convoluted and so confusing to read.
But I think the bigger issue here is this: Should journalists fracture the main clause and strand its operative verb just so they can use a long descriptive phrase to modify the direct object?
I don’t think so. Such awful-sounding sentences can actually be avoided by using a verb phrase that’s more congenial and amenable to such disruptions of the natural grammatical order.
In the sentence in question, it’s the phrasal verb “brought out of retirement” that causes the problem. See how the phrasal verb “taken out of retirement” works slightly better—mind you, just slightly better—grammatically and structurally for that sentence pattern:
“GM
has taken Bob Lutz, one of Detroit’s most colourful if sometimes controversial executives,
out of retirement to advise its senior management team.”
Here, the verb “has taken” is able to immediately and fully act on its direct object “Bob Lutz.” Unlike “has brought out,” the verb phrase “has taken” doesn’t “hang”; it is later modified properly by the adverbial phrase “out of retirement” after the obligatory appositive—“one of Detroit’s most colourful if sometimes controversial executives”—had done its job of modifying “Bob Lutz.”
But regardless of the verb phrase used, it’s much better, much smoother, and trouble-free to use the passive-voice construction for such sentences:
“
Bob Lutz, one of Detroit’s most colourful if sometimes controversial executives,
was taken out of retirement by GM to advise its senior management team.”
I know that not a few journalists will stand firm on using the active voice even in this particular case, but I think this is one of those rare instances when the passive voice clearly outperforms the active voice in clarity and readability.
(Next:
A full-dress review of the verb types in English - 1) October 18, 2018
This essay, 1,113th of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the October 11, 2018 issue (print edition only) of The Manila Times
, © 2018 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
