Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Subject-Verb Separation.

The core words in a sentence are the subject and the verb. They are related both in sense and in grammar. And related words should go together. If you separate them too much, the sentence goes asunder — e.g.: o “Jurors’ need to hear that testimony again just minutes before reaching a verdict puzzled experts.” Haya El Nasser & Sally Ann Stewart, “Verdict Revealed Today,” USA Today, 3 Oct. 1995, at A1. (A possible revision: “When jurors said they needed to hear that testimony again, and just minutes later reached a verdict, the experts were puzzled.” Or: “The experts were puzzled when jurors said they needed to hear that testimony again, and just minutes later reached a verdict.”) o “Plans unveiled Wednesday for a pair of looping reliever roads connecting vast tracts of land south of Forest Drive have been roundly panned by many residents.” Jeff Nelson, “Many Skeptical of Forest Drive Plans,” Capital (Annapolis), 28 July 1996, at D1. (A possible revision: “Many residents have criticized plans unveiled Wednesday for a pair of looping reliever roads connecting vast tracts of land south of Forest Drive.”) For information about the Language-Change Index click here. ——————– Quotation of the Day: “The order of ideas in a sentence or paragraph should be such that the reader need not rearrange them in his mind. The natural arrangement of ideas in critical argument is: Statement of problem; Marshaling of evidence, first on main points, then on subsidiary ones — the same sequence kept throughout the argument; Credibility of evidence examined; Statement of possible implications of all evidence not wholly rejected; The weighing of conflicting evidence in the scale of probability; and Verdict.” Robert Graves & Alan Hodge, The Reader Over Your Shoulder 171 (1943).