Possibly unclear sentence?

Question

Hello,I ran into the following sentence:John likes to sunbathe, read, and sleep on the beach all day.1. Does 'on the beach all day' go with all three verbs or with sleep only? 2. If the phrase goes with all three verbs, how do we re-write the sentence to indicate it goes with sleep only?What do you think of the following solutions?John likes to sleep on the beach all day, sunbathe, and read. (awkward!)John likes to sunbathe, read, as well as sleep on the beach all day. (unclear still?)John likes to sunbathe, to read, and to sleep on the beach all day. (fully parallel, but clarity is still questionable?)John likes to sunbathe and read, and sleep on the beach all day. (clear enough?)John likes to sunbathe and read. He also likes to sleep on the beach all day. (definitely clear?)3. On the other hand, if it goes with sleep only, how do we re-write the sentence to indicate it goes with all three verbs?John likes to sunbathe, read, and sleep - on the beach all day. (make sense?)Thanks and Best Regards,Hoa Thai

Avangi · Accepted Answer

Hi Hoa,

I believe all native speakers would, without hesitation, take it to mean he spends the day at the beach doing three different things. John likes to spend all day at the beach, sunbathing, reading, and sleeping.

If he spent all day sleeping he'd get a sunburn and not have time to read.

John likes to spend the day at the beach, where he enjoys sunbathing and reading, but sometimes wastes the whole day sleeping.

[or / and sometimes sleeping all day long.]

In this case "all day" applies to "sleeping." He enjoys doing three things at the beach: sunbathing, reading, and sleeping all day - but not necessarily at the same time. With the optional ending, he enjoys A, B, and C. In the main ending he enjoys and wastes.

The last of your group of five offerings is the only one that reads well, in my opinion, but it doesn't say he reads and sunbathes on the beach. Could be at home.

Best regards, - A.

Marius Hancu · Answer

AND to me means logical AND, thus ALL three, but there's a potential for confusion for some readers.

Hoa Thai · Answer

Hello Avangi,

Based on your interpretation, the sentence is context sensitive since all the activities could be done at the same location / on the same day.

Let's take a look at another sentence:

John likes to hunt, skydive, and play tennis at a small club in his neighborhood everyday.

Clearly, if we attribute the AND meaning to the sentence (i.e., doing all three things at the club everyday), it does not make sense. Moreover, one could even zealously argue that the sentence is an example of faulty parallelism.

So would you advise that, for the sake of clarity, we should break the sentence into two parts as we did for the previous one, or we should keep them as they are for compactness and smooth flow?

Thanks and Best Regards,
Hoa Thai

Anonymous · Answer

Hoa ThaiHello,

I ran into the following sentence:

John likes to sunbathe, read, and sleep on the beach all day.

1. Does 'on the beach all day' go with all three verbs or with sleep only?
2. If the phrase goes with all three verbs, how do we re-write the sentence to indicate it goes with sleep only?

What do you think of the following solutions?

John likes to sleep on the beach all day, sunbathe, and read. (awkward!)
John likes to sunbathe, read, as well as sleep on the beach all day. (unclear still?)
John likes to sunbathe, to read, and to sleep on the beach all day. (fully parallel, but clarity is still questionable?)
John likes to sunbathe and read, and sleep on the beach all day. (clear enough?)
John likes to sunbathe and read. He also likes to sleep on the beach all day. (definitely clear?)

3. On the other hand, if it goes with sleep only, how do we re-write the sentence to indicate it goes with all three verbs?

John likes to sunbathe, read, and sleep - on the beach all day. (make sense?)

Thanks and Best Regards,
Hoa Thai

Hi Hoa Thai,

I think your sentence is open to interpretation. To me, it depends on the order the hobbies are stated and how the hobbies are associated with each other. Sunbathing and sleeping at the beach can take place all day simultaneously but reading and sleeping all day don’t stick towel to each other. So by simply glancing over the sentence, my interpretation was he often likes to spend all day at the beach reading, soaking up the sun and sleep.

Avangi · Answer

Hoa ThaiLet's take a look at another sentence:

John likes to hunt, skydive, and play tennis at a small club in his neighborhood everyday.

Hi Hoa,

I'm assuming by "context sensitive" you mean the construction of the sentence alone cannot determine which modifiers go with which gerunds, and it may be unfair to expect the reader to parse the meaning and the grammar at the same time. Your new example makes that point brilliantly.

I accepted your invitation to make the sentence less context sensitive, and I think my first rephrasing succeeded without actually breaking it into two parts, or clauses (arguably).

The second interpretation was more difficult for me since I don't believe that was the intent, and the two clauses seem to help. Yes, I believe something like that would be necessary to keep the reader from scratching his head and saying, "Hey, wait a minute!" when first reading your skydiving and tennis example.

My position is that in the original example "on the beach" modifies the activities and "all day" modifies "on the beach." Alternately, I'd agree to "on the beach all day" modifying the group of activities and not each activity separately.

When you take the position that "all day" modifies each activity separately, or (because of proximity) "sleep" alone, then no, the activities cannot be done in the same place at the same time - as is also true of your skydiving example.

I'll always vote for clarity over compactness. As for "smooth flow," I think it has a better friend in "clarity" than it does in "compactness."

Best wishes, - A.

Hoa Thai · Answer

Hi Avengi,

Thank you for sharing your time with me.

Happy New Year and Best wishes,
Hoa Thai

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