Day 014: Sentence Obliterated

Today, a sentence was taken from my essay criticizing this ad and was completely torn apart as the best example of what not to do.

This was the sentence:

"On the surface, the message that the ad is attempting to translate is that the effects of smoking is worse than what happened on 9/11 by orders of magnitude."

 My first thought was, "Duh! 'effects of smoking ARE worse'."

Oh no. Oh no no no, there's much more to be corrected with this sentence:

• 9/11 should be spelled out.
• "Orders of magnitude" doesn't fit the rest of the sentence.
• "On the surface" should be replaced with one strong word: "superficially."
• You don't "translate" a message, you "convey" a message.
• Conveying a message is redundant anyway. Message should be taken out.
• It needs to be less wordy.
• Just in general, this sentence is unclear.

A better way to word this sentence is:

"Superficially, the ad attempts to convey that the effects of smoking are worse than the result of the September 11 attacks."

(Ironically, translationparty.com had a bigger problem with this sentence than the original).

But this is why I love the class. There is a ton of shiz to be learned, and I'm ready to pick it up. Also, this book, On Writing Well, is on my bucket list of books to read. It seems like one of those books that you can open, read, and instantly become that much wiser.

However -- for the record -- this is not the worst sentence you'll ever come across. This sentence, originating on 4chan, is a complete train wreck of the English language:

"Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?"

Rephrased, the question reads:

"Has anyone really decided as to even go that far in wanting to do to look more like so?"

That not helping much, many people challenged themselves with deciphering the cryptic inquiry. The official consensus was:

"Has any video game company really taken such measure to make a game so realistic?"

What I take away from this: proofread.