Now that hurts! W. F. Hollander wants more readable sentences from me (Dec. 12.) I could paraphrase my “very SAAD” comment for him by quoting Hanlon’s Law: “Never attribute malice to that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.”

I confess that “Show me the context” followed by two embedded relative clauses — the second modifying a pronoun which is itself the pronominal object in a prepositional phrase modifying the direct object of an infinitive functioning as a predicate nominative inside the first — between the subject and verb of a noun clause that is itself the object of a participial phrase modifying a direct object in a prepositional modifying the direct object of the main clause was a little off the deep end, even for me.

Mea maxima culpa.

Not to excuse my well-documented verbosity, I would like to say, however, that the inability to make sense of long sentences with complex phrases and clauses inhibits both the reading and writing ability of some faculty as well as students hereabouts.

If Iowa State really is bent on “becoming the best,” we need to spend more time developing both syntactic fluency and the improved reading skills that come as an unanticipated bonus, and then “many an empty controversy and idle fancy” around here might be resolved more professionally.

Translation: stretch yourself; it’s good for you. And I’ll work on my verbosity. I promise.

Virginia Allen

Associate professor

English