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Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Criminal Sentence 273: An Extra Fatty Sentence

From an online article about fatty pizzas:

"Fare from the sea is one of the best ways to go, but sprinkled over a bed of starchy dough and fatty cheese and you've got a different story altogether."

This sentence has a number of problems. First, it is way too long. I suggest breaking it up after "to go." Now we can see that the rest of the sentence is missing a correct subject. There is no clear word that goes with "sprinkled." We know from the context that the writer meant "seafood," but it's missing. In addition, two cases of "and" might be confusing. Here is a better way to express this idea:

"Fare from the sea is one of the best ways to go. However, you've got a different story altogether when you sprinkle seafood over a bed of starchy dough and fatty cheese."

Avoid fatty pizzas and fatty sentences, please.

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