What does the sentence mean?

Question

Yellow fever, the disease that killed 4,000 philadelphians in 1793, and so decimated Memphis, Tennessee, that the city lost its charter, has reappeared after nearly two decades, in abeyance in the Western Hemisphere.

What does "in abeyance" mean? I look it up in my dic and it means "temporary inactivity" or "suspension". These meanings in the context do not make sense to me.

Plz explain,

Thanks

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Yellow fever, the disease that killed 4,000 philadelphians in 1793, and so decimated Memphis, Tennessee, that the city lost its charter, has reappeared after nearly two decades, in abeyance in the Western Hemisphere.[/nq]
To start with, that sentence is very badly punctuated. I will defer to those more knowledgable than I who may comment, but I would write it this way:

"Yellow fever (the disease that killed 4,000 philadelphians in 1793, and so decimated Memphis Tennessee that the city lost its charter) has reappeared after nearly two decades in abeyance in the Western Hemisphere.
[nq:1]What does "in abeyance" mean?[/nq]
It mans that no one in the Western Hemisphere has contracted Yellow Fever in the past 20 years.
[nq:1]I look it up in my dic and it means "temporary inactivity" or "suspension". These meanings in the context do not make sense to me.[/nq]
The way that sentence was put together, it's not surprising. And I'm not quite sure whether you should write "two decades in abeyance" or just "two decades abeyance".

Doubtless more erudite denizens of the list will comment.

Usenet · Answer

on 15 Nov 2003:
[nq:2]Yellow fever, the disease that killed 4,000 philadelphians in 1793, ... after nearly two decades, in abeyance in the Western Hemisphere.[/nq]
[nq:1]To start with, that sentence is very badly punctuated. I will defer to those more knowledgable than I who may ... Memphis Tennessee that the city lost its charter) has reappeared after nearly two decades in abeyance in the Western Hemisphere.[/nq]
"Yellow fever (the disease that killed 4,000 Philadelphians in 1793, and so decimated Memphis, Tennessee, that the city lost its charter) has reappeared after nearly two decades in abeyance in the western hemisphere" is required: capital "P", commas setting off "Tennessee", and no caps on "western hemisphere". Em-dashes could also be used instead of the parentheses, but I agree that commas make it too difficult to read.

Otherwise, thank you for making sense of that jumble, John.
[nq:2]What does "in abeyance" mean?[/nq]
[nq:1]It mans that no one in the Western Hemisphere has contracted Yellow Fever in the past 20 years.[/nq]
[nq:2]I look it up in my dic and it means "temporary inactivity" or "suspension". These meanings in the context do not make sense to me.[/nq]
[nq:1]The way that sentence was put together, it's not surprising. And I'm not quite sure whether you should write "two decades in abeyance" or just "two decades abeyance".[/nq]
'Twould have to be "in abeyance" simply because that is the normal idiom, but it would probably be acceptable as "after an abeyance of two decades" or "after two decades of abeyance" or "after a two- decade abeyance", or maybe even "after two decades' abeyance", all of which should be grammatical.
[nq:1]Doubtless more erudite denizens of the list will comment.[/nq]

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1] on 15 Nov 2003:[/nq]
[nq:2] To start with, that sentence is very badly punctuated. ... after nearly two decades in abeyance in the Western Hemisphere.[/nq]
[nq:1]"Yellow fever (the disease that killed 4,000 Philadelphians in 1793, and so decimated Memphis, Tennessee, that the city lost its ... of the subject of the sentence, a completely wild interjection of other comment. Below that is clearly not the case.[/nq]
#begin modified quote Yellow fever, the disease that killed 4,000 Philadelphia's in 1793 and so decimated Memphis, Tennessee that the city lost its charter, has reappeared after nearly two decades in abeyance in the Western Hemisphere. #end modified quote

I would argue for the above punctuation. In a complex sentence, leave out any commas you can afford to go without. This ain't German!

-- "Throw me that lipstick, darling, I wanna redo my stigmata." +-Jennifer Saunders, "Absolutely Fabulous"

Usenet · Answer

on 18 Nov 2003:
[nq:2] on 15 Nov 2003: "Yellow fever (the disease that ... I agree that commas make it too difficult to read.[/nq]
[nq:1]This is that multiple levels of comma thing that I've been agitating for for years. I would not use parentheses ... the above punctuation. In a complex sentence, leave out any commas you can afford to go without. This ain't German![/nq]
I cannot omit the comma after "Tennessee", but I can drop the one in "4,000"; scientific writing tends to drop commas for 4-6-digit numbers, so "4000" looks perfectly normal to me: I'm a medical editor when I'm not teaching EFL, and I have no problem reading or writing Germanic sentences and using as much punctuation as possible, but I don't think it's very easy on one's readers.

I think the sentence is too packed with information. It's bad journalistic writing for two reasons, IMHO.

First, it's too long. It has 33 words, and readability statistics suggest that 22 words is the longest sentence that is easily readable.

Second, it delays the main point of the sentence until a secondary historical point is made. The most important information in the sentence is that yellow fever is back. What it did to Philadelphians in 1793 is secondary and the kind of background stuff that newspapers ought to save for paragraph 2.

If this came from Time or Newsweek, or some other news magazine, then it's understandable why it's so long and complex.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I think the sentence is too packed with information.[/nq]
I agree.
[nq:1]It's bad journalistic writing for two reasons, IMHO. First, it's too long. It has 33 words, and readability statistics suggest that 22 words is the longest sentence that is easily readable.[/nq]
Best steer clear of Proust and Joyce then... :-)
[nq:1]Second, it delays the main point of the sentence until a secondary historical point is made. The most important information ... to Philadelphians in 1793 is secondary and the kind of background stuff that newspapers ought to save for paragraph 2.[/nq]
I regard that part as a sort of aside, a rhetorical stage whisper, which is why I used brackets. What you refer to as Em-dashes (-- ?) would have served too. Where does that terminology for dashes come from by the way? An editor's/printer's nomenclature?

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I regard that part as a sort of aside, a rhetorical stage whisper, which is why I used brackets. What ... the letter "m" and an en-dash is one as wide as terh letter "n" - it comes from printer's/compositor's nomenclature.[/nq]
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan

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