smart moves for style and clarity

Just as writers can choose their words, they can also choose the order of their words in sentences. 

But just as we tend to fall back on common words over and over — even though our vocabularies have many more words in them — we tend to rely on the same sentence patterns over and over. For writers, varying sentence patterns is a great opportunity because it sidesteps monotony and allows them to put weight on particular ideas. 

For example, you can vary the routine order of the major elements in a sentence. These elements are the grammatical subject (the doer), followed by the predicate verb (the doing or action), followed by the grammatical object if there is one because the verb is transitive and requires it. Every sensible sentence in English — and in thousands of other languages — must have two (or three) of these elements. (For more on how these elements create meaning, see The Drivetrain of Meaning in Sentences).

In English the common order of these elements  is subject > verb (also known by linguists as SV order) or subject > verb > object (SVO order) when there is a grammatical object. However, writers can shuffle the order of these elements for focus and emphasis. 

Consider these sentence pairs in which the first sentence uses common order (SV) and the second reverses the order (VS): 

                The lemmings jumped off the sheer cliff.

                Off the sheer cliff jumped the lemmings.

                 [subject: lemmings  verb: jumped]

                I have never seen in my lifetime such lying in politics.

                Never in my lifetime have I seen such lying in politics.

                [subject: I verb: have seen]

Words and phrases at the beginning of sentences tend to gain prominence. Moving elements to the beginning also helps to avoid a long, monotonous tail of words at the end of sentences. 

Inverting the order can also direct the reader’s eyes where the writer wants them to go. Consider this pair:

                A lone, motionless elk stood in the clearing.  [SV order: elk stood]

                In the clearing stood a lone elk, motionless. [VS order: stood elk]

The second sentence begins with the clearing then tightens the focus to the elk while the first sentence moves in the opposite direction, from the elk to the clearing. And putting the modifier motionless at the second sentence’s end underscores the stillness of the scene. (For more on slotting modifiers, see Make the Most of Modifiers.)

The two sentences below are from an article by film critic Roger Ebert about a movie depicting Hitler’s final days. Ebert tees up a pair of sentences that have the grammatical objects admiration and sympathy in the initial slot (OSV order) instead of the more common pattern where they would follow the verb (SVO):
 

                Admiration I did not feel. Sympathy I felt in the sense that I would feel

                it for a rabid dog, while accepting that it must be destroyed.

Compare the sense of those sentences to this version using the more common SVO order:

                I did not feel admiration. I felt sympathy in the sense that I would feel it for a

                rabid dog, while accepting that it must be destroyed.

Why did Ebert shuffle the common pattern? By moving admiration and sympathy to the beginning, Ebert gives those words more weight. If he had begun his sentences with the grammatical subject “I,” the focus would seem to be Ebert himself, but that is not his intent. He wants to draw attention to collective human emotions, not just his own personal revulsion. 

Some reversals of the routine order are more out of the ordinary than others, and like any writing tactic, writers should use them to concentrate meaning, not to embellish. Wolcott Gibbs of The New Yorker once used wanton reversals like those below in italics to parody the excesses of TIME magazine (routine word order is restored in the second sentence of each pair):
 

                Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind.

                Sentences ran backward until the mind reeled.

                Where it all will end, knows God!

                God knows where it all will end!

To create variety and emphasis, try different positions for important words and word strings. For example, if you want to highlight certain words and details, try moving them to the beginning or the end and rewriting the rest as needed. If you are writing a sentence for a climax or turning point, you can signal its importance with a striking word order and/or putting the key details at the end. 

Shuffling word order is easy and no risk. Your ear and innate sense of grammar will instantly tell you if the result is a sensible English sentence or not.   Ω     

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Related article  To highlight strong modifiers while revising, read Make the Most of Modifiers.

COMMENTS

Mr. Olson, I agree with you and enjoyed your article immensely. I have a question about word order. You say, quite correctly, that the two most important places of emphasis in a sentence are the beginning and the end. Do you think one is more emphatic than the other? I'm thinking of the difference between so-called loose and periodic sentences. And here's a simpler example. "I love you, Jane". OR "Jane, I love you." Do you think these two sentences are semantically identical, or do they actually emphasize different things? What does each sentence emphasize, in your opinion? I ask, because I'm not sure myself. Best regards, Claudio F.

Greetings, Claudio: I'm not sure if one slot is more emphatic than the other, they are just different. For example, if you were trying to create suspense in a sentence, a key word might be withheld until the end of the sentence. Alternatively, a key modifier might be positioned in the opening slot, as in one of the examples in the post above, for emphasis. 

Regarding your example about Jane, the two sentences do not sound identical to me. When Jane is at the beginning, it sounds like the speaker might be correcting or trying hard to get Jane to listen, "JANE! I love you."When Jane is at the end, the speaker might be emphasizing that it is Jane, not someone else, whom he/she loves, i.e., "I love YOU, Jane."  

"Loose" and "periodic" sentences are terms that also refer to what is at the beginning and what at the end, but more in terms of grammatical structure and whether words are in front of or after the subject-predicate core. I think those labels are perplexing, however. I like to distinguish between "front-loaded" and "back-loaded" sentences.