Sometimes writers do more than use pompous words, they put together entire pompous paragraphs. These can be breathtaking pieces of craftsmanship - carefully designed, constructed and finished prose that is so lovingly infused with self-importance at every step it stops readers cold. It seizes and holds focus so that the words around it fall away into an abyss and all that is left is a polished, shining bauble of pomposity. Such works of art are typically lost in the shuffle of the surrounding writing, but on this page I plan to rescue some examples and give them the recognition they deserve. Enjoy!
(See below for reader responses to the use of appositives)
Chris Lehmann at http://www.observer.com/node/37031:
This two sentence paragraph is fantastic because the first sentence sets you up to expect normal writing and the second comes from out of nowhere with a knockout punch of literary Narcissism. Read through it at normal speed and let it just wash over you:
The impresarios of Washington, D.C.’s tourist industry have retained a battery of image consultants to furnish a new city catchphrase, like Seattle’s brand-new "Metronatural" or Little Rock’s in-your-face "the Rock." D.C. boosters have been making do with a soporific Ken Burns–style appositive, "the American Experience," and the city’s oddly intransitive license-plate slogan, "Celebrate and Discover."
Let's unpack it, shall we? First of all soporific (sleep inducing or sleepy) is a PAW. Then comes appositive, which is defined at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/apposition as:
Grammar. a syntactic relation between expressions, usually consecutive, that have the same function and the same relation to other elements in the sentence, the second expression identifying or supplementing the first. In Washington, our first president, the phrase our first president is in apposition with Washington.
How exactly is "the American Experience" an appositive? Does Experience identify or supplement American? If I understand the definition correctly the second element in the apposition could be removed because it merely supplements the first. Instead of writing "Washington, our first president, was a general" I could write "Washington was a general." It would still be correct, just less informative. Could we do the same with "The American Experience" and simply call it "The American"? Uh, no. We can say our first president was Washington; can we say Experience is American? I'm as enthusiastic a cultural imperialist as you'll find but even I won't go that far.
That last sentiment notwithstanding, we'll go to Canada to finish this off. For a look at intransitive here's what the University of Ottawa (in the person of Heather MacFadyen) has to say at http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/trnsintr.html:
Depending on the type of object they take, verbs may be transitive, intransitive, or linking.
The meaning of a transitive verb is incomplete without a direct object, as in the following examples:
INCOMPLETE
The shelf holds.
COMPLETE
The shelf holds three books and a vase of flowers.
<snip>
An intransitive verb, on the other hand, cannot take a direct object:
This plant has thrived on the south windowsill.
The compound verb "has thrived" is intransitive and takes no direct object in this sentence. The prepositional phrase "on the south windowsill" acts as an adverb describing where the plant thrives.
<snip>
The train from Montreal arrived four hours late.
The intransitive verb "arrived" takes no direct object, and the noun phrase "four hours late" acts as an adverb describing when the train arrived.
With that in mind, how is "Celebrate and Discover" oddly intransitive? It seems to me it's a pretty obvious invitation for the reader to celebrate and discover Washington D.C. There seems to be no need for a direct object there and even if there were license plates don't have room for much besides slogans. If you want grammatically complete sentences on a license plate maybe try to get one on the Space Shuttle. Its meaning is clear and the amount of room to work requires it to be short - what on earth is odd about that? "Oddly intransitive" seems to exist just for the author to show off.
To review:
soporific - PAW
appositive - possibly incorrect; more likely terribly unclear
intransitive - unclear
Three pompous constructions, none of them needed and each committing a different sin against readability. The bar has been set!
Andrew Doberstein writes:
"The American Experience" is an appositive in relation to 'Washington, DC', as in the full catchphrase:
"Washington, DC, the American Experience."
I believe that this was the author's justification.
Daniel Leonard:
[T]he phrase described as an appositive is referring to its relationship to Washington, D. C., as the other phrases mentioned are slogans their respective hometowns. This doesn't mean it isn't pompous, as 'slogan' would have worked just as well, but I do think referring to it as an appositive at least makes sense...It seems as though the paragraph is describing "Metronatural" and Seattle as being in apposition in that "Metronatural" is a descriptor for the city of Seattle, like a tagline or a slogan. The next example is "Little Rock: the Rock" (not a good slogan, but a slogan nonetheless). Finally, it's referring to "Washington, D. C.: the American Experience" as the whole phrase, with "the American Experience" as an appositive.
So there you go - I stand corrected on that count. I must say though: It's an exceptionally awkward construction.
I forgot about (in)transitive verbs and only remembered the mathematical one described at http://www.answers.com/topic/transitive-law:
transitive law
Property of relationship that states that if A is in a given relation to B and B is in the same relation to C, then A is also in that relation to C. Equality, for example, is a transitive relation.
So if A =B and B = C then A = C. Most relations we work with are transitive, which makes the intransitive ones interesting. A great example is the intransitive dice described at http://edp.org/dice.htm with the following colors and numbers:
Red: 3 3 5 5 7 7
Yellow: 2 2 4 4 9 9
Blue: 1 1 6 6 8 8
With these dice, red beats yellow 56% of the time and yellow beats blue 56% of the time but blue beats red 56% of the time! WHOA!
The relations in the game of rock, paper, scissors are intransitive too. As are citizen, politician, prostitute.