A recent issue of The New Yorker (a meticulously edited magazine that I look forward to each week) featured a lively article about food critic Pete Wells.
It also included this problematic sentence. What do you think of it?
This reasoning seems civil, though, as Wells acknowledged, it means that his pans focus disproportionately on restaurants that have corporate siblings.
(I should explain that pans here means “negative reviews.”)
There are two commas around though and as Wells acknowledged. They convey a clear message: Change your voice there. (Try reading the sentence aloud, and you’ll see that the commas work fine.)
But I maintain that the sentence should have been revised. Why? For one thing, it’s confusing. I don’t think it makes sense the first time you read it. Red flag!
I don’t care how sophisticated and successful you are: No one should have to reread one of your sentences to figure out what you’re saying.
And there’s a usage problem. Two commas signify that optional words can be omitted. Let’s try reading the sentence this way:
This reasoning seems civil, though, as Wells acknowledged, it means that his pans focus disproportionately on restaurants that have corporate siblings.
It’s a run-on! There should be a comma after civil.
There’s a simple fix: Delete the comma after civil. Here’s the result – a perfectly readable sentence:
This reasoning seems civil though, as Wells acknowledged, it means that his pans focus disproportionately on restaurants that have corporate siblings.
I vote for keeping the break after civil; it makes it clear where the sentence is going, without the reader having to look forward a bit. I would have done it one of these ways:
This reasoning seems civil – though, as Wells acknowledged, it means that his pans focus disproportionately on restaurants that have corporate siblings.
This reasoning seems civil…though, as Wells acknowledged, it means that his pans focus disproportionately on restaurants that have corporate siblings.
Nice! I especially like the ellipsis. Maybe the New Yorker should give you a job! Thanks, Kelly.
Aside from the punctuation issue, the sentence seems overly long and uses very lengthy words. Why say “disproportionately” and “corporate siblings?” Is the writer trying to be literary at the expense of the readers? As a writing tutor, I often advise the students, “Don’t make your readers have to work hard to understand your meaning.”
I had a hard time with the pronunciation focus on the word pans. Said one way the sentence flowed differently. The whole sentence made more sense to me this way:
This reasoning seems civil; though as Wells acknowledged, it means that his pans focus disproportionately on restaurants that have corporate siblings.
And the words pans focus would not be run quickly together when read in the mind or aloud. Pans would have a very slight pause, though not comma worthy, or a slight emphasis, to make it stand out. It’s hard for me to explain, but pans is a new word for me, and when I read it the first few times I ran the two words together almost as their own phrase – pans-focus. Now that I understand the word better, I can read it more properly.
I like your version, with one reservation. A semicolon is like a period and requires two complete sentences. An idea beginning with “though” isn’t a sentence – it’s an extra idea. A comma would work – but then we’re back where we started.
My suggestion would be to change “though” to “but.” An idea beginning with “but” is a complete sentence. Now the semicolon is ok – or you could use a comma:
This reasoning seems civil; but as Wells acknowledged, it means that his pans focus disproportionately on restaurants that have corporate siblings.
This reasoning seems civil, but as Wells acknowledged, it means that his pans focus disproportionately on restaurants that have corporate siblings.
I’m with you 100%, Darrell. I suspect the author thought that New Yorker fans expect fancy words. Your advice is right on target.