Monday, June 1, 2015

grammaticality - What is wrong with this headline?




"Fascist X" said a lawyer and sent to jail for insulting him.





There has been some discussion about this headline's structure. Since I intended to put the quoted speech in front of the sentence, I built it accordingly. However, too many people (especially native English speakers) objected to it by saying "that doesn't sound correct" without giving any grammatical explanations whatsoever.



So, What is wrong with that headline?



According to these resources, sentence's structure is correct:






I know there are better ways to build that sentence, but what is grammatically incorrect in it that leads native English speakers to find it incorrect?


Answer



This type of construction only works when the subject of the headline sentence does not change or invert.




Politician challenged by court, retracts statement
Cat climbs tree and can't get down




This can also be done with an inverted passive sentence.





Case dismissed, dropped by plaintiff
Park renovated and now reopened




Combining the two in the same sentence causes too many problems of understanding what the subject is. And it creates, as was pointed out by your original detractors, a construction which "doesn't sound correct."



My fix, which keeps the focus on the details that seem important to you (with whatever verb intensity you prefer):




"Fascist X" insult lands lawyer in jail




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