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There are oddities in the English language that are never expressly taught. I have in mind things such as the order of adjectives, by which I mean that a native speaker will (usually) prefer my big, green, timber, house to the alternative my timber, green, big, house. There are rules, or what purport to be rules, derived from how native speakers order their words, but native speakers don’t refer to them. A sentence sounds right or wrong.
Within my writing circle we sometimes, albeit rarely, encounter glitches in each other’s work, which are breaches of some rule or other. At my last session, one writer read something out which caused a few head scratches. I said that I had a problem with it, because it stood out. As soon as I heard it, it sounded wrong. This is a published author whose usual writing is simply exquisite. It manages to have a wonderful, poetic flow that is at the same time engaging and engrossing. She is writing the story of a family in Europe, mainly France, starting at the end of WW1 and ending in the 1970s. In the passage we critiqued, 15 year-old Jacob has just worried his younger sister. Realising this, he gives her a hug.
‘Don’t worry,’ Jacob comforted against her hair.
So, we’ve got “comforted” which has been co-opted as a speech tag. The object “her” has been removed and the adverbial phrase “against her hair” added.
Personally, for speech tags, I rarely depart from said or replied. Comforted is an oddity.
Comforted is normally a transitive verb: it requires an object to make sense. However, it seems to me that the object can be omitted, making it ambitransitive, in some particular circumstances. For example, we might say of a counsellor when asked what she did for a living, ‘she comforted.’ The object is omitted even though it is, arguably, implicit. However, that isn’t the set of circumstances found in the writing circle example. I am already uncomfortable with comforted.
My discomfort is compounded with the addition of the adverbial phrase. Maybe it’s because I’m already unhappy with comforted, but “against her hair” doesn’t seem to fit well. Or perhaps it’s because “against” has something of the “how” the comforting was done rather than the intended “where” it was done. It’s a little like:
‘Jacob struck against the wall,’ as opposed to, ‘Jacob struck from the wall.’
Can any kindly Denizen point me to specific rules, if any, (other than common decency) that are breached?
Here are my thoughts but I’m very willing to be told I’m wrong.
The sentence would read better with a more appropriate verb and a comma:
‘Don’t worry,’ Jacob soothed, against her hair.
I agree Ath with both your points — I’d prefer ‘said’ for the speech tag, but using a transitive verb isn’t a problem. Aren’t a lot of speech tags transitive? Said, answered, asked…
I think (big dollop of uncertainty here) that the problem is the lack of the comma. Without the comma, the sense of ‘against’ is ambiguous; it potentially turns the hair into an antagonist:
“‘Don’t worry,’ Jacob comforted against her hair, which was a nasty piece of work, having more opinions than hair should have and wanting Jacob’s sister not to feel comforted at all.”
Is the grammatical problem that ‘against’ in this context is a preposition rather than part of an adverbial? A different preposition reads better:
‘Don’t worry,’ Jacob soothed into her hair.
Though that sounds rather like he’s applying hair conditioner 🙂
‘Don’t worry,’ Jacob soothed, into her hair.
I can’t offer any grammatical analysis, but it does certainly sound wrong. Almost creepily so. I did have to have a giggle at Libby’s analysis of the hair as ‘a nasty piece of work’.
I did think of a comma and I agree that it helps. What still interests me is whether the construction actually breaches any commonly agreed grammatical rules.
I take your point about common speech tags being transitive, although several are actually ambitransitive e.g.
It was necessary to answer. John answered.
I agree that ‘against’ is a poor prepostion here. Personally, if I was forced as part of some strange test to maintain the general structure of the sentence, I would probably replace it with ‘from’.
I am beginning to believe that there are no particular rules being broken here other than the most important of all: avoidance of ambiguity; awareness of how things sound; comprehensibility; and good taste!
Crossed with your reply Kate.
Yes! It is creepy. I have been discussing it offline with another member of the circle. We thought that ‘against her hair’ was perhaps one of the worst possible adjectival phrases.
I think part of the problem here is that the author is concentrating very hard on the laudable aim of putting as much as possible – that he is comforting her, that he is speaking with his mouth close to her hair – into as few words as possible. Which can be very effective and satisfying when it works, but unfortunately this doesn’t.
It’s also a good illustration of why fancy speech tags are unnecessary. Jacob’s words, ‘Don’t worry,’ already strike an unmissable note of comfort. You don’t need ‘comforted’ or even ‘soothed.’ The idea’s there already.
I agree that ‘against’ is ambiguous, and ‘into’ is better. It’s what I would have used.
Personally I do have a problem with ‘comfort’ being a transitive verb. Yes, the verbs Libby quotes can be transitive, but they’re often used intransitively too. ‘Comfort’ isn’t, and so it jars.
I think the comma is optional: not really necessary as long as you use good old ‘said’ as the speech tag, thus removing any idea of conditioner. I would have written, ‘”Don’t worry,” Jacob said into her hair.’ I might stretch to ‘murmured,’ to add a note of gentleness.
But to answer the original question, it sounds wrong, and yes, that is enough. Never mind the rules of grammar. I broke one in my first para, by starting a sentence with ‘which.’
Hmm, crossed with everything after Libby’s post. Hence my repetition of the point about the transitivity (Is that a word? Sod it, it ought to be…) of those speech tags.
Afterthought: to draw a parallel with music, you don’t need to know what the notes are, or the intervals between them, to spot a discord.
I’ve learned a new word: ambitransitive. Thanks, Ath. It’s a helpful one.
Like you I think probably no rules are broken. I have a small bee in my bonnet about contemporary UK English abandoning commas and that may be why I thought a comma would help.
Your list, Ath – avoidance of ambiguity; awareness of how things sound; comprehensibility; and good taste – is a handy measure for effective writing, with good taste being at the writer’s discretion!
I agree with Richard, too, about the author seeming to strip the word count too far. On the whole, plain speech tags are best but I quite like soothed. It’s onomatopoeic. Perhaps I’ll find a use for it somewhere in my own writing but without the soothee’s hair, or ear, or any other body part. It could all get yucky as well as creepy.
The territories discovered through grammar questions are probably limitless 🙂
No, I don’t worry too much about rules. Most of the rules are inventions of over-educated elites designed to reinforce the idea that how the aristocracy spoke and wrote was the correct way*. That’s how we end up with such nonsense as split-infinitives and pointless debates about whether there should be a comma prior to and in a list. Seeing as the comma was invented at the start of the C16th by a Venetian printer who wanted a handy marker to separate items in a list, perhaps it should be obvious that the rules about commas are no more than inventions too. Actually, I think rules are extremely useful. I just get annoyed by the notion that any occasion on which the rules are not followed is some sort of crime or affront to nature.
So, yes. I agree with you completely that there doesn’t need to be a rule for a sentence, like the one I noticed, to be wrong. The weird thing, and, I suppose, what prompted this brief blog, is that the author herself, in spite of being highly literate, and a very competent writer, did not appear to recognise the issue. I wondered if there was a rule I could wave at her. There have been a few (very few) others, so I’d say it was a kind of strange blind-spot. Nothing major, and nothing that an editor wouldn’t weed out.
*a little over-polemical, but there is some truth in it. People made up the rules. They were principally based on how they saw people speak. Since the educated, book-writing classes mixed with people of a similar status, the rules naturally reflected their use of language. There was a smidgeon of pure snobbery as well such as the inclusion of Latin rules about not ending sentences with a preposition, and the (over)use of I instead of me, neither of which had anything to do with how the language was spoken except by a tiny minority.
Re the bee in your bonnet. My comments about commas were not directed at you. Commas are wonderfully useful and under-used.
No worries, Ath. I absolutely agree with you. For me, rules are interesting in a meta way for people’s reactions to them, either for or against. I like to think I’m relaxed but my bonnet bees show my uptightness 🙂 The truth is, I’m fascinated by ‘rules’ and the improvements or failures that can happen when they’re ‘broken’ – though most of the time nothing happens at all.
I overlook my own clunky sentences when there seems to be some bigger or valid point trying to get out, one that I haven’t yet pinned down. The trouble is, it’s easy to get used to odd phrasing or vocabulary when I’ve produced it myself. Perhaps that was happening with the writer in your group. At other times, of course, I just plain miss my own errors.
In my own favour, I have only two bonnet bees, if BBs can be defined as things which make me sigh. The other one is use of unnecessary italics in published books. I find them anxious and rather shouty. It’s OK, I want to tell the author. I’ve noticed what you’re saying. Let’s switch off the slopey stuff and relax.
Having got this off my chest I’m relaxing already.
Ever onwards.
The trouble is, it’s easy to get used to odd phrasing or vocabulary when I’ve produced it myself.
There’s definitely something in that. It’s a similar issue to writing something which doesn’t make sense on its own because you know all the back story that your audience is missing. You know what a turn of phrase means and it’s something of a surprise when others question it.
The writer in this case produces exceptionally careful prose. Every sentence feels balanced, with a colour and precision that borders on the poetic. I think that, as Richard suggested, she has reached too far in this case.
I’m reminded of a certain contributer from Cloud days whose mantra was “less is more”. On one occasion he produced a short story with a couple of totally meaningless sentences. At which point he admitted that he’d been foist with his own petard.
Oh yes, I remember that gent, and his habit of taking other people’s writing and, unasked for, eviscerating the piece, stripping it of every possible nuance and subtlety to leave a lifeless skeleton. You mean he once actually admitted he was wrong?
I’ve just edited out the opposite problem (sort of) to the one you mention in your first para. I spotted my MC thinking about something I knew she was going to know, but she didn’t actually know yet. You really do have to be careful about these things.
I spotted my MC thinking about something I knew she was going to know, but she didn’t actually know yet
That’s the kind of thing I try to see in my own writing though often it’s only after leaving the piece as long as possible that I notice what I’ve done.
My main reason for leaving drafts a long time – apart from life getting in the way – is that it’s my only reliable-ish method to check for nuance in the writing and to add it if it’s not there. I’m an enthusiastic deleter and don’t regret my lost words – early drafts contain a lot of guff. Producing interesting prose is different – growing a paragraph from dull beginnings – and now that I’m more experienced I fall down rabbit holes less often. It would be nice to get my rabbit-hole hours back and extend my life by a month or six.
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