I got into a discussion about the nature of clauses in English. Not so much about the grammaticality of them but on how easy or hard it might be to understand. I thought it would be interesting to try and write an extremely long, yet grammatical, sentence and see if: 1) others were able to comprehend it, 2) If I could comprehend it after writing it and 3) if writing such a long sentence provided anything different from a similarly worded paragraph or page.
So without further ado;
The Sentence.
Tea, that drink brewed, which means to put dried things, in this case, leaves, into boiling or near boiling water, from the plant Camellia Sinensis that originated in only one a tiny part of the world around an area of southwest China, Tibet, north Myanmar, and northeast India (but is now cultivated, which is to say grown, in over 50 countries), which is an area that for the longest time had been far out of reach of the civilization in which I resided at the time of my expose to it, and had a remarkable journey, spanning a great many decades and miles, to simply get to the point where I, for a sum of money that my family, which by no means was the kind of family that made a habit of exposing me to all the luxuries that the age of my birth had to offer, could afford to try on a whim and not out of any requirement or compulsion, was able to try, is which is the “is” of existence and not predication, something, which, to clarify, is one thing among a large number of things and not by any means the only thing, I, to borrow the phrase, the person to whom the perpendicular pronoun refers to when uttered in the English language by me, enjoys, which is to say that I have a positive emotional response to times there I encounter, consume, or talk about it with little to no negative emotional response at the same time, and has remained, despite the many changes that my life, a life to which I am fondly attached to by the way, has undergone since I first encountered tea, so for many years.
Honestly, I could probably go further. However, my eyes started to hurt at this point and it became difficult to keep track of all the nested clauses. I figured that a sentence, that was in effect, the length of a page was long enough to serve as a test of my ability to write a long sentence and how difficult it is to understand it.
I did run the sentence through two programs to see if there were any problems with it. To my surprise both Hemingway and Grammarly (2 popular free sites) said that there were no problems with it. I was happy that both sites recognized the entire thing as one sentence. I felt for sure that I missed a comma or something somewhere.
In fact, the Hemingway editor said that the sentence was not just hard but very hard to read which was sort of the point; so mission accomplished. I was also flattered by the post-graduate reading level it assigned. You can see the results for yourself below.
Here is an easier, reorganized version of the above sentence in paragraph form in case you were not able to understand it.
Tea is a drink that I enjoy. Tea is a drink brewed from the Camellia Sinensis plant. This plant was originally found around southwest China, Tibet, north Myanmar, and northeast India. For a long time, this region of the world was out of reach from the rest of the world including the place where I grew up. But, today tea is grown in over 50 countries all over the world. Tea had a remarkable journey to get to the point where I was even able to try it. It was once very expensive and would not have been something my family could easily afford. But today it is relatively cheap and I can enjoy it every day. My enjoyment of tea has not changed despite all that has happened in my life since I first tried it.
How Did I Do It?
Quite easily actually. I wrote the sentence using a very simple method pushed to the extreme. I started with the following basic sentence.
- Tea is something that I enjoy and has remained so for a long time.
This sentence itself is longer than it needs to be. I could simply write:
- I have enjoyed tea for a long time.
- I enjoy tea.
But, again, the point of this exercise was to write a long sentence so why not start with one.
From this sentence, I tried to define or expand on every word or phrase that I used in the sentence. I then made such definitions and expositions into a clause in the main sentence. For example
Brewed -> to put dry leaves into hot water
….brewed, which means to put dried things, in this case, leaves, into boiling or near boiling water,….
I also tried, as much as possible, to include a conjunction in each of my clauses. For example,
….could afford to try on a whim and not out of any requirement or compulsion….
These two simple practices repeated numerous times on itself (defining and adding exposition to the definitions and expositions and so on) makes it easy to not run out of something to say. Keeping track of if I “closed” each clause was the hardest part.
So what do you think? Can you understand the sentence? Do you write sentences like this, be it not as long and hope your readers can understand? Do you think it’s better to write shorter, simpler sentences in a paragraph to convey the same information? Or maybe is there something that is lost when such a thought is not written as a single sentence?
I would love to hear your thoughts and maybe even try to read some of your very long sentences.