This from a scholar I admire and respect. Normally an extraordinary communicator, this particular New Testament scholar writes the following single sentence:
Within the terms of the perspective on communication I will adopt, therefore, the twenty-seven New Testament documents are the evidence for a process whereby, at a particular time and place, certain persons (the authors of the texts) reduced meanings into messages of a particular symbolic form, in this case the written word, for transmission to other persons (the express or implied recipients) and those written messages were in fact transmitted to them by delivery, as with actual letters like Galatians, or by publication, as with the gospels or other documents like the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse, whereupon the recipients perceived and interpreted them, and possibly even acted on the basis of their interpretations.
Oh my. If a student of mine wrote a sentence like this, it could possibly drop his/her grade from A to A-. Several sentences like this: B+. Of course, this particular sentence was authored by a UK author and I understand we have a different appreciation for the efficiency of words across the pond.
Well let’s not forget that the sentence doesn’t say very much to begin with.
He’s trying to explain his basis for using communication theory in reference to the New Testament — to show how his reading of the New Testament texts is different than some others’. The attempt got away from him for a paragraph or so.
I know you don’t like naming miscreants, but the identity of the writer can easily be googled.
Yeah, but I don’t want a google of that person’s name to lead to a negative post about them on my blog — especially when I think he’s great most of the time.
Sounds almost like a sentence that C.S. Lewis would have written.
Well, Lewis obviously has the same UK grammatical sensibilities!
I’m just waiting for my British friends to chime in . . .
OK, I chime in. I haven’t noticed that the British are particularly wordy. I certainly am not. Perhaps it is more to do with Elser’s subject matter (social science) than his nationality.
It definitely is not the subject matter. Long, complicated sentences (from my American perspective) are abundant in British scholarship — no matter the approach.
Haha, I definitely had trouble following that! After reading it through a few times I THINK I finally got a slight gist of what he was saying