ssuchin

Why would a columnist write this:

So we incline to support Israel, which is understandable, but which raises, also, questions.

instead of .... 'which also raises questions'.

I am assuming his structure is carefully chosen and I am wondering what benefit the first one provides.

Thanks.

rydenthorne

No, it's just poorly written.

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Fantasy of You

It gives a certain voice. It's hard to say anything for sure, since it's taken out of context.

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ssuchin

Could you tell me a little more what you mean about giving it a certain voice. I cannot find the full paragraph, but how would knowledge of adjacent sentences help. The writer is Bill Buckley.

Achilles

I say it's poorly written. Where did you find this? Hopefully not a national or even professional publication.

The way it's written makes it sound like it's raising questions in addition to raising something else, when in reality it's raising questions in addition to being understandable. There's no reason to write that awkwardly.

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ssuchin

It was a column I read on townhall.com.

What about this one by Orwell:

Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them.

Why put 'but' in between commas? Thanks.

mwd

The but is in commas because it interrupts the flow of the sentence, and serves to join the two clauses on either side of it. It's not an unusual thing to see done. It's done with a lot of other words or phrases that often join two parts of a sentence together, e.g., 'therefore', 'of course', 'however', and so on.

You could argue that those two commas are unnecessary. You could also argue in favour of using a comma before 'but' but not one after. It is, to a certain extent, an issue of style. What's most important is how it sounds to the ear. In Orwell's case I think it sounds pretty good. It also depends on the context. In Orwell's case, the sentence you pulled is from an essay. If I was writing fiction I'd be inclined to use fewer commas than he did there, personally. But in more technical writing, or writing that is meant to convey an idea, it's best to make things as clear as possible even if the words don't flow as well as a result.

On the other hand, the original sentence you quoted just plain sucks. When it comes to readability, the best thing you can rely on is your ear. Here's the first sentence with a couple tiny changes:

So we are inclined to support Israel, which is understandable, but which also raises questions.

Dawnstorm

Actually, that the but is between two commas is a coincidence:

The first comma separates two clauses. The second comma sets off an inserted phrase from the second clause. An alternate way to punctuate this could be:

"Each of these passages has faults of its own, but - quite apart from avoidable ugliness - two qualities are common to all of them."

***

The first sentence is a bit odd.



Context would help, because that would give us the rhetoric function of the sentence. I think that the misplaced "also" is there for emphasis. By separating the word "raises" from the word "questions" with the "also", each of these words are more accented than they would be if they followed one another.

Notice that the misplaced "also" isn't the only thing that slows down the ending of the sentence. The clause "but which... ...questions" could easily have been fitted into the previous one: "which is understandable but also raises questions." I do think that's deliberate rhetorics, but without the text I have only my assumptions to support this.

Clearly, this sentence is a transition: the "So" refers back, persumably summarising a point made, and the "questions" are probably going to be talked about afterwards. So I do think that the unusual and "wasteful" syntax are deliberate rhetoric tools.

FrankBlissett

In your "Isreal" example, I agree that it's just the writer's natural voice. I really don't have any trouble with it, but think the line would have flowed better if it had been rewritten.

In general, one author will be known for being quite windy at times and another for being short and sweet. Some readers will prefer one and some the other.

-Frank

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Rob

Yeah, it's not the 'but' that's inbetween commas, it's the 'quite apart from avoidable ugliness' that's between two commas. Otherwise it would have been:

Cheers,
Omni

mammamaia

if you knew bill buckley as well as i do [and other folks my age may], you'd know this is simply his rather idiosyncratic style... he speaks that way, too, fyi!

he's one of the 20th centuries most brilliant intellectual observors and commentators on the human condition and has earned the right to 'do his own thing' by well over a half century of writing and speaking, including his founding and running [for decades] of the esteemed 'national review' magazine and the tv show 'firing line'...

he's one of my all-time favorite icons/idols...

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ssuchin

Thanks for everyone's input. I found it helpful.