4 ms·

>> The tank filled with hydraulic fluid that powered the fins enabling them to rotate and steer, ran out of fluid before landing. Nit, but this is the most dif

by xophe 12y ago

>> The tank filled with hydraulic fluid that powered the fins enabling them to rotate and steer, ran out of fluid before landing. Nit, but this is the most difficult sentence I've had to parse all year.

alex_duf 12y ago
Looks like a French sentence: The ideas are in an order I'm used to.
- cmelbye 12y ago
  I think it's just missing a comma after "tank".
  - StavrosK 12y ago
    Yeah, or a "that".
Lost_BiomedE 12y ago
Bad news for me. I usually write like this: The tank filled with hydraulic fluid, powering the fins and enabling them to rotate and steer, ran out of fluid before landing. Hopefully the above reads more clearly. It is how I parsed it on first read.
- philsnow 12y ago
  Even clearer: The tank--filled with hydraulic fluid, powering the fins, and enabling them to rotate and steer--ran out of fluid before landing. A (B C D) E
- pjc50 12y ago
  Not everything needs to be a single sentence. "The tank of hydraulic fluid ran out before landing. This tank powered the fins that steer the rocket. Therefore the rocket could no longer be steered." Or there's the ablative: "The tank of hydraulic fluid having been emptied, the fins could no longer steer the rocket."
NamTaf 12y ago
It's a badly written sentence, in part because it's written in passive voice. Lost_BiomedE's siblig comment rewrites it far more nicely. BI isn't exactly the bastion of quality journalism.
- dalke 12y ago
  Where's the passive? "The tank ... ran out of fluid" isn't passive. (If it is, then "the heroes ran out of time", "the car ran out of gas", "I ran out of money" and "the airplane ran out of runway" also use passive voice, yes? What is the active equivalent?) "hydraulic fluid that powered the fins enabling them to rotate and steer" isn't passive either. Poorly written, certainly. I double-checked with the examples in http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/passive_loathing.pdf http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/passive_loathing.pdf and still didn't see a match. FWIW, that paper also comments "mistaken charges of using the passive voice are commonplace".
  - NamTaf 12y ago
    My apologies, I read 'to rotate' as passive but it isn't at second pass. I should have tried rewriting it as active voice and it would have become obvious when I failed.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
baddox 12y ago
"The horse raced past the barn fell." It's a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence
lmm 12y ago
I'd argue that's because it's wrong; not massively wrong, but wrong. You can have a parenthesis with commata on both sides (as siblings have suggested), or you can (just) write the same sentence with no commata at all and it would make sense, but a single comma in that position is a mistake.

by xophe 12y ago

alex_duf 12y ago

Looks like a French sentence: The ideas are in an order I'm used to.

cmelbye 12y ago
I think it's just missing a comma after "tank".
- StavrosK 12y ago
  Yeah, or a "that".

Lost_BiomedE 12y ago

Bad news for me. I usually write like this: The tank filled with hydraulic fluid, powering the fins and enabling them to rotate and steer, ran out of fluid before landing. Hopefully the above reads more clearly. It is how I parsed it on first read.

philsnow 12y ago
Even clearer: The tank--filled with hydraulic fluid, powering the fins, and enabling them to rotate and steer--ran out of fluid before landing. A (B C D) E
pjc50 12y ago
Not everything needs to be a single sentence. "The tank of hydraulic fluid ran out before landing. This tank powered the fins that steer the rocket. Therefore the rocket could no longer be steered." Or there's the ablative: "The tank of hydraulic fluid having been emptied, the fins could no longer steer the rocket."

NamTaf 12y ago

It's a badly written sentence, in part because it's written in passive voice. Lost_BiomedE's siblig comment rewrites it far more nicely. BI isn't exactly the bastion of quality journalism.

dalke 12y ago
Where's the passive? "The tank ... ran out of fluid" isn't passive. (If it is, then "the heroes ran out of time", "the car ran out of gas", "I ran out of money" and "the airplane ran out of runway" also use passive voice, yes? What is the active equivalent?) "hydraulic fluid that powered the fins enabling them to rotate and steer" isn't passive either. Poorly written, certainly. I double-checked with the examples in http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/passive_loathing.pdf http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/passive_loathing.pdf and still didn't see a match. FWIW, that paper also comments "mistaken charges of using the passive voice are commonplace".
- NamTaf 12y ago
  My apologies, I read 'to rotate' as passive but it isn't at second pass. I should have tried rewriting it as active voice and it would have become obvious when I failed.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

baddox 12y ago

"The horse raced past the barn fell." It's a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence

lmm 12y ago

I'd argue that's because it's wrong; not massively wrong, but wrong. You can have a parenthesis with commata on both sides (as siblings have suggested), or you can (just) write the same sentence with no commata at all and it would make sense, but a single comma in that position is a mistake.