I can’t tell whether this is poor style, or poor grammar, or both. It’s the one sentence summary of an inside story from the front page of today’s NY Times. (It doesn’t seem to be duplicated in the online edition.)
It’s the Detroit Tigers, not Art Howe’s Mets, who are threatening to eclipse Casey Stengal’s original Mets of 1962 for most losses in a season, but the current Mets may not be better, but certainly richer, than their notorious and hapless ancestors.
The two ‘but’s close together are pretty bad, which is why I thought poor style. But I can’t imagine any sentence could start “the current Mets may not be better, but certainly richer…” which is why I thought poor grammar. It’s probably a fun game to try and formulate the precise rule they are breaking here, but I’m not going to be the one to do that.
{ 20 comments }
Ophelia Benson 09.25.03 at 5:36 pm
Oh yeah. Speaking as an editor and proofreader as well as writer and all-around nag, that clause is baaaad. It’s not poor grammar, it’s bad grammar. Use of the word ‘poor’ as a euphemism for ‘bad’ is also bad, by the way, but that is indeed by the way. ‘may not be better, but certainly richer’ is just not an English sentence. Re-do. Probably best to make the one sentence two; at any rate, a pronoun is absolutely required in that second clause, along
with a repeat of the verb. ‘They may not be better but they are certainly richer.’
Obviously.
The Times is abysmally sloppy in the copy editing department these days – and yet they’re always telling us they’re the ‘greatest news organization in the world’. I. don’t. think. so.
roy edroso 09.25.03 at 6:10 pm
To amplify on Ophelia’s excellent commentary, I will tell you why the grammar here is bad: In “the current Mets may not be better, but certainly richer,” the “but” is used as a conjunction. (“But” can also be used as a preposition, though that does not apply here.) Conjunctions are meant to join two equal forms — two words, say (“I like swimming and baseball”), or two independent clauses (“I may be down but I’m not out”). This author uses “but” to marry a clause to a sentence fragment. That’s-a no good, boss.
As to the other “but,” we could fix that too, but it would be more trouble than it’s worth, as sound grammar cannot rectify unsound thinking. Observe:
“It’s the Detroit Tigers, not Art Howe’s Mets, who are threatening to eclipse Casey Stengal’s original Mets of 1962 for most losses in a season; but, while the current Mets may not be better than their notorious and hapless ancestors, they are certainly richer.”
As grammar, this new version parses — but what have the two ideas in the sentence (the Mets are not as inept as the Tigers; the new Mets have more money than the old Mets) to do with one another?
My next step would be to examine the whole graf, but that is more than I’m prepared to do at this rate of pay.
anoderay 09.25.03 at 6:30 pm
As one who tends to write long, convoluted sentences, I’m curious whether this would have been acceptable with a little rearranging. For instance, suppose that it had read:
“It’s the Detroit Tigers, not Art Howe’s Mets, who are threatening to eclipse Casey Stengal’s original Mets of 1962 for most losses in a season, but the current Mets, though certainly richer than their notorious and hapless ancestors, may be no better.”
That looks better to me, but is it? I suppose that it should still be split into two sentences by replacing “season, but” with “season. But”. It also still seems a bit unclear about exactly whom the Mets are no better than.
I know that I took English at some point in my education. I wonder what happened? It’s all so foggy now.
anoderay 09.25.03 at 6:34 pm
Somehow I managed to miss Roy’s post even though I made mine twenty minutes later. That answers most of my questions. Thanks.
sidereal 09.25.03 at 6:35 pm
My go, under the self-imposed rule of minimal change:
but the current Mets may not be better — despite being richer — than their notorious and hapless ancestors.
A real fix would be to change the bizarrely passive ‘may not be better’ to ‘may be worse’
I think the particular rule being broken is semantic rather than syntactic. Specifically, ‘but’ introduces an exception in the assertion or a change of mood. . . successive buts does a reverse exception and is basically equivalent to a double negative. Also, I’m a couple of years removed from SyntaxII, so I’ll get the terminology wrong, but I believe the final ‘but’ is not conjoining equal phrases. It attempts to conjoin ‘be better’ and ‘certainly richer’ which are a clause and a phrase, respectively. ‘but are certainly richer’ would allow it to conjoin clauses.
sidereal 09.25.03 at 6:37 pm
Holy cow. I read the comments and somehow missed Roy’s explanation also. Apologies for the repetitive redundancy with which I said something over again.
Ophelia Benson 09.25.03 at 7:08 pm
But then you made up for it with the laugh.
Jeremy Osner 09.25.03 at 8:05 pm
People take the “avoid passive voice” rule and apply it inappropriately. To wit, “may not be better” is neither passive nor bizarrely so. It is an inelegant phrasing; but in a way wholly unrelated to the passive voice. “May be worse” is not an apt replacement as it does not mean the same thing. I think “may be no better” communicates the intended idea and sounds good too.
James Joyner 09.25.03 at 8:07 pm
Roy:
Good fix.
…but what have the two ideas in the sentence (the Mets are not as inept as the Tigers; the new Mets have more money than the old Mets) to do with one another?
The point, presumably, is that the Mets are arguably worse than the Tigers because they lost nearly as many games while spending markedly more on payroll. The Mets have spent a ridiculous amount of money–geometrically more than the Tigers could ever afford–and still managed to stink. The Tigers at least have an excuse: they can’t afford good players.
nick 09.25.03 at 8:43 pm
God, that’s a horror. Without changing much:
‘While it’s the Detroit Tigers that threaten to eclipse Casey Stengal’s original Mets of 1962 for most losses in a season, the current Mets may not be much better (though are certainly richer) than their notorious and hapless ancestors.’
There are so many problems here, though: the flip-flop-flip of the clauses; the problem of referring to a team collectively (singular or plural? our experts differ); the added problem of using the American practice of referring to a team in the singular when the name itself is a plural… and so on. The repetition of ‘Mets’ doesn’t help.
raj 09.25.03 at 8:47 pm
Try
“It’s the Detroit Tigers, not Art Howe’s Mets, who are threatening to eclipse Casey Stengal’s original Mets of 1962 for most losses in a season. The current Mets may not be better, but they certainly are richer, than their notorious and hapless ancestors.”
However, I prefer having the second sentence something along the lines of:
“The current Mets may not be better than their notorious and hapless ancestors, but they certainly are richer.”
Except that the Detroit Tigers are hardly ancestors of the Mets.
roy edroso 09.25.03 at 9:16 pm
All the commentary here is noteworthy, though I believe we are trying to revive a dead horse.
I disagree (respectfully) with James, and agree with Raj. “Ancestors” is the giveaway.
I think the Tigers came into it only because they’re famously bad right now, and the author felt they should be referenced.
I’m also guessing that the author’s original opening graf was better than this, and his editor told him to condense it. That’s the sort of thing that gives even a pro writer fits, and this has all the symptoms of forced editorial conflation.
The author should have blown off the Tigers. In fact, the opening sentence could have been, “Forget the Tigers.”
Now, back to fixing my own rickety prose…
Michael 09.25.03 at 9:47 pm
I don’t think anyone has nailed the key grammatical problem: there is a predicate stem “may not be” that has a double complement, “better” and “richer.” However, he doesn’t mean to say “may not be richer.” He means to say “certainly are richer.”
mario 09.26.03 at 3:47 am
thanks all.
I was wondering why I had to keep re-reading that sentence to try and figure it out.
I thought it was me.
Nabakov 09.26.03 at 8:24 am
I think the way to fix the problem is for the Mets to spend some of their riches on better players.
Unless I’ve misread something here.
Wilbert Robinson 09.26.03 at 2:58 pm
Unable to resist a chance to put the boot in on the Times, I thought I’d note that the manager of the 1962 Mets was Casey *Stengel*, not Stengal. Of course, since the story isn’t in the Times’ online edition, I don’t know if that’s really the Times’ bad as well, but I’m happy to believe it is …
Nate 09.26.03 at 4:53 pm
Did you konw taht aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Mabye we shuold aplpy tihs same logic to grmamar and levae the poor bsatard alnoe; the piont is the tgiers scuk.
Francois Lachance 09.26.03 at 4:53 pm
It may be because English is not my mother tongue but I don’t see any difficulty in parsing the sentence or any fault in style.
Michael wrote:
“I don’t think anyone has nailed the key grammatical problem: there is a predicate stem “may not be” that has a double complement, “better” and “richer.” However, he doesn’t mean to say “may not be richer.” He means to say “certainly are richer.””
I reply:
I think whether intended or not the possibility of conveying the meaning that the current Mets _may not be richer_ than the ancestor Mets is quite logical (consider taxes, inflation and calculate real dollars)
The sentence as quoted by Brian in the blog entry reads elegantly if read aloud. The commas set off an aside. They to my perhaps non-American eye and ear indicate an ellipsis: but [they may be] certainly richer.
Has the subjunctive mood and the phrasings of the mind at work teasing possibilities vanished from public discourse in the English-reading world or just with reader-responders at Crooked Timber?
Brian Weatherson 09.26.03 at 5:23 pm
Wilbert, that was probably my mistake not the Times’s. If I can find the paper copy around the office I’ll check on the details, but my expectation is that I got it wrong.
bandiera 09.27.03 at 1:26 am
Oh dea-yer, ya mean the whole sentence coulda been subject to misinterpretation by the poster? Nevermind.
François…hein?
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