Troublesome sentence
I posted a comment on a youtube video about someone with a religious agenda who offers flawed philosophical arguments.
I made the following flawed post
"Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but that does not entitle people to preach and pontificate on subjects on which they know nothing and make gross errors that are obvious to any casual observer, and then treat others with disdain when they disagree with you."
which has numerous problems.
Firstly, the grammatical subject of the first clause is the collective pronoun "everyone", and then I try to move the subject to be any individual within the context of the rights of everyone, which looks awkward.
Secondly, I have a problem that I meet repeatedly, the use of "and". It is sometimes difficult to indicate to the reader ahead of its usage whether "and" is going to be used to as a conjunction between a list of items and another part of the sentence. The "and" in "..nothing and make.." initially appears to indicate something else about the subjects on which they might pontificate, but in fact it is something else that people should not do. The hierarchical level of the "and" is difficult to indicate to the reader.
Thirdly, I have problems with the final ", and". Should that comma be there, is there a way to retain the issues I wish to raise in one unifying sentence?
Apologies to people if this is not the form of questions that are usually made on this forum or that my problems seem trivial
Top answer
I would write it as follows, to make the structure of the sentence clearer. " I would retain the final comma to make the sentence more easily readable.
- I would write it as follows, to make the structure of the sentence clearer.
- " I would retain the final comma to make the sentence more easily readable.
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I would write it as follows, to make the structure of the sentence clearer.
"Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but that does not entitle people to preach and pontificate on subjects on which they know nothing, to make gross errors that are obvious to any casual observer, and then to treat others with disdain when they disagree with you."
I wo
0I would write it thus:
Everyone is entitled to be stupid. Stupidity however, does not entitle people to preach and pontificate on subjects about which they know nothing, nor to make gros errors - obvious to even the most casual observer, and then treat with disdain those who disagree.
0
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