All about the sentence

By Shevlin Sebastian

When I saw the cover of this book, at the Ernakulam Public Library, the full stop at the end intrigued me. Why a full stop? Usually, titles on covers do not have a full stop. So I picked it up, glanced through it and got a shock. This 230-page book was about the sentence. And only about that.?

It made me realise the primary role that sentences play in our life. We think in sentences; we speak using them, and in any form of written communication we have to use the sentence. And we desperately need the full stop so that readers can take a breath and be ready to absorb the next sentence.?

The only time sentences don’t need a semicolon, a colon, a dash or a full stop is when we are angry and shouting at somebody. The sentences rush out one after the other till the recipient pokes two fingers into his or her ears and shouts, “Stop!”?

The 52-year-old author Joe Moran is a British cultural and social historian.?

Moran has written 18 books, out of which the most popular is ‘Sentence’.?

Some of his other books include ‘On roads: a hidden history’, ‘Queuing for beginners: the story of daily life: from breakfast to bedtime’ and ‘If you should fail: a book of solace’.

In ‘Sentence’ Moran says that for a sentence to be all-powerful, use only a noun and a verb. Adjectives and adverbs and other modifiers weaken it. And in these days of short attention spans, that would mean that a reader, with the flick of his fingers, would move on to the next article or post.?

The following are some insights from the book which proved valuable to me.?

A sentence is a small sealed vessel for holding meaning.??

A sentence should not advertise the labour that went into its making.?

To be able to write a sentence that someone else might read voluntarily and with pleasure is the work of a lifetime.?

A good sentence gives order to our thoughts and takes us out of our solitudes.?

Most of us, when we write, march too quickly on to the next sentence.?

A sentence breathes and moves like a living thing.?

Writing that sidesteps the senses is dull.?

When words are too general, they paint inadequate pictures.?

A sentence should be a labour to write, not to read.?

Nouns and verbs are the two poles of a sentence. Nouns keep it still; verbs make it move.?

Words are only flat on the page. In the mouth and in the head, where silent reading occurs, they are solid and alive. Some sentences fail because they don’t sing in our heads.?

You have to search for the truth inside sentences, not outside of them.?

Almost all writers stuff too much into one sentence.??

Writing is a journey into sound….?

There are a lot more I could include. But I am sure Joe Moran would not like that. He would prefer that people buy the book.