Grammar for Real People, Part 4-2: Clarity Rule 2: Specifier Logic · 8:36pm Mar 3rd, 2016
Part 1: Magic and Science
Part 2: Sentences, Phrases, and Clauses
Part 3: Phrase Functions and Parse
Part 4-1: Modifier Confusion
Part 4-2: You Are Here!
Part 4-3: Heavy Complements
Part 4-4: Positive/Negative Unity (The Truth Behind “Double-Negatives")
Part 4-5: Scripts and Sleepy Phrases (The Truth Behind “Passive Voice”)
Part 4-6: Script Details (Coming Soon)
TL;DR at the bottom, as always.
Rule 2: Specifier Logic
(Official name: Subject-Pointing Principle)
Basically, this is when you talk about something that hasn't been brought up before or isn't sufficiently connected to the preceding thoughts of the passage. When a text has this problem, it's really hard for the reader to make sense of what you're trying to say over the course of a passage. Like this:
Pegasus magic is just as critical to life in Equestria, maybe even more so. Every town needs water. Lakes and reservoirs can dry up. Many pegasi live on the surface, and suffer from low self-esteem.
Now knowing all you do about the subject, you might be able to piece that together and figure out what it's trying to say, but you shouldn't have to. The point of written language is to communicate ideas, and the reader shouldn't have to work for that.
Now compare that example to a revised version:
Many pegasi who live on the surface suffer from low self-esteem, because they don't have the same magic as their unicorn neighbors. However, pegasus weather magic is just as critical to life in Equestria, maybe even more so. Every town on the surface needs the water that can only a pegasus can deliver. Local lakes and reservoirs only have a limited supply, and must be refilled by pegasus weather teams.
A little longer, granted, but much clearer. Now even someone completely unfamiliar with the ideas talked about could know what is being said.
In order to revise this passage, I rearranged the sentences into a more logical order, added more detail where it was needed, and connected secondary thoughts to the ideas they're meant to build on.
This problem isn't often this blatant or consistent, and is therefore a lot harder to catch, especially for the writer. I suspect a lot of times that my writing suffers from it, even in these blogs. (If you find anything hard to understand, please let me know in the comments, and I'll be happy to simplify things even more to help you!)
Likewise, the methods to fix it are also pretty muddy. But once you've caught the problem, fixing it isn't hard at all.
As the name suggests, this problem has a lot to do with specifiers. Let's parse the first example to see how:
<Pegasus magic> is (just critical to life in Equestria) ,{maybe even more so}.
<Every town> DOES (need water).
<Lakes and reservoirs> can (dry up).
<Many pegasi> DO (live on the surface, and suffer from low self-esteem).
The specifiers of each of these sentences are completely unique and isolated, meaning there's no connection of ideas. "Pegasus magic" and "Many pegasi" sound similar, but they're actually completely different things. Magic is only brought up once in the entire passage, for instance, so without more context we have no idea what it's supposed to do with anything else. Let's compare it to the revised version:
<Many pegasi (who live on the surface) > DO (suffer from low self-esteem ,{because they don't have the same magic as their unicorn neighbors} ).
{However}, <pegasus weather magic> is (just as critical to life in Equestria ,{maybe even more so} ).
<Every town on the surface> DOES (need the water that only a pegasus can deliver).
<Local lakes and reservoirs> DO ( {only have a limited supply}, and {must be refilled by pegasus weather teams} ).
You'll notice that here, you can make connections from each specifier to something in a preceding sentence, so the logic flows smoothly the whole time.
Like I said, you won't ever see whole passages like this (hopefully), but you might catch weird little logic jumps from one sentence to another, an omitted thought that is actually crucial to understanding something important.
If you're ever confused by something you read, look for the specifiers, and see if there are any that don't match up to anything already said.
TL;DR
Text is hard to follow if new sentences don't build on what has already been said. In particular, specifiers should always be things that have already been mentioned already.
This post has been eye-opening. I must apply this knowledge in my editing and writing immediately.