Tuesday Thought: Stark attachments 2

Last weeks post identified pairs of sentences with the same subject as candidates for stark attachments. This week's looks at sentences with a who or which clause--€”to see how to switch from the common to the professional.

Consider this sentence from the February 25 New Yorker, in Michael Specter's piece on carbon emissions, '€œBig Foot.'

A former Berkeley economics professor and chief economist at the Chicago Board of Trade, Sandor is known as the '€œfather of financial futures.'

The common version would have been:

Sandor, who is a former Berkeley economics professor and chief economist at the Chicago Board of Trade, is known as the '€œfather of financial futures.'

Deleting who is and pulling the rest of the clause to the sentence'€™s front produces a starkly attached leading part.

Specter could also have deleted who is and left a starkly attached middle part:

Sandor, a former Berkeley economics professor and chief economist at the Chicago Board of Trade, is known as the 'father of financial futures.'

And here Specter goes from the common:

Facts like these have transformed carbon dioxide into a strange but powerful new currency, which is difficult to evaluate yet impossible to ignore.

To the professional, with a starkly attached trailing part:

Facts like these have transformed carbon dioxide into a strange but powerful new currency, difficult to evaluate yet impossible to ignore.

So, delete who is or which is and see where best to starkly attach what's left at the front, middle, or back of your sentence.

Next week’s post will look at a sentence with two or more verbs.