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Friday, September 25, 2009

Criminal Sentence 285: Double After

The first paragraph of a newspaper article:

"Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized Thursday after becoming ill in her office at the court after treatment for an iron deficiency."

I'm not so sure that I like two cases of "after" in this sentence, and there are too many prepositional phrases:

after becoming ill
in her office
at the court
after treatment
for an iron deficiency

I know that newspaper reporters want to cram in all the facts in the first sentence, but this is a bit much. Let's break it up:

"Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized Thursday after becoming ill in her office at the court. She had just undergone treatment for an iron deficiency."

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