Tue, 26 May 2026 01:29:21 EDT
Consider This Sentence
The following sentence occurs in The Guardian on Apple News. “Saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who spent more than two years practicing in solitude as a young man on a windswept New York bridge to reinvent his playing and become one of the giants of jazz, died at the age of 95 on Monday, his publicist said.”
The absurdly long appositive phrase that separates subject and verb confuses on first and second reading. The information clearly does not belong in the summary sentence or even the summary paragraph.
I prefer attributions at the start of sentences because they are more natural there. Editors erroneously believe that the subject must always come first, and consequently entrench clumsy style in their publications.
I will resist the temptation to call Rollins a colossus, the name of one of his well-known albums.
My rewrite: “According to his publicist, saxophonist Sonny Rollins died on Monday at the age of 95. Rollins was one of the giants of jazz.”