Sentences and Subtext: Notes

As we saw in class with the New York Times quote, the structure of a sentence can send a different message than the literal meaning.
a. Noun-verb constructions that do not imply an action by a person come across as milder; they soften the message or implication of a sentence.
b. The "noun style" usually uses a weak verb (like "is") - meaning, a verb that doesn't imply an action. It is followed, as Lanham says, by preposition phrases and adverbial phrases that place a lot of specific things - nouns - in the sentence. This gives the sentence an objective feel, a detached and factual and thoughtful feel.
c. Information put in an appositive before the verb can be used as a persuasive tool. It manages to convince the reader of something without making a direct statement. Example: "Jonah Goldberg, a journalist and not a trained historian, regards Woodrow Wilson as a semi-totalitarian figure." Without direct statement, the sentence implies that Jonah Goldberg's views are untrustworthy.