Frequent use of incomplete sentences (or sentence fragments) is a style that many Dutch writers and readers like: they find it punchy and snappy. English readers, by contrast, find texts with lots of fragments difficult to read. They experience them as jerky rather than lively. In English, fragments are mainly used for special effects – in advertisements, slogans and literary works, for instance. In normal writing, fragments are usually considered to be poor style. So how do you know whether a sentence you’ve written is complete or incomplete? And how can you cut down on fragments in your writing?
Something missing
Here are some examples of sentence fragments (shown in italics). They come from the English version of a Dutch company’s website.
Delivering safety will always be a challenge. Making investment in trends like automation and controls systems crucial.
Change brings opportunity. But requires new skills.
We add real value. Whether you need a designer, a systems engineer or a project manager.
Testing, testing
So how do you know whether a sentence is a fragment? Just ask yourself three things:
- Is there a finite verb?
When looking for the finite verb, ignore any verb forms ending in -ing, any past participles [deelwoorden] in -ed or -en, and infinitives. - Is there a subject?
To find the subject, ask who or what is ‘doing’ the action expressed by the verb. - Is it a clause beginning with a subordinating conjunction or a relative pronoun?
These include after, although, as if, because, before, if, once, since, until, while, how, that, which, who, whom, whose.
Getting rid of fragments
You can get rid of sentence fragments in various ways:
- Join the fragment to the preceding complete sentence:
Delivering safety will always be a challenge, making investment in trends like automation and controls systems crucial. - Make the fragment a proper sentence:
Change brings opportunity. But it also requires new skills. - Add information you want to highlight by using a dash:
We add real value – whether you need a designer, a systems engineer or a project manager.
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Now try your hand at fragment spotting!
It seems so simple. You have a message in Dutch, and you need it in English. You just have it translated and you’re done. Right? Wrong! Nine times out of ten, a straightforward translation is not really what you need.
A very common error is to suppose that logic governs English spelling. Yes, the number 40 does have something to do with the number 4, but that doesn’t have any relevance to its spelling! The correct spelling is not ‘fourty’, but forty. Just remember the contrast contained in the word forty-four and you should never misspell forty again…
Should you write Please, send me your comments or Please send me your comments? The version without a comma is correct. If you put a comma after please, it sounds as though you are irritated and impatient: Oh, for heaven’s sake, just send me your comments will you: you’ve kept me waiting long enough!
Don’t be confused by the fact that ’s is used for the possessive of nouns (the book’s cover, John’s coat). It behaves differently because it is a pronoun: think of its as the partner of the possessive pronoun his (‘of him’) – which, as you know, also has no apostrophe.
When used with a noun, the phrase as much/many/little/few as possible needs to ‘surround’ the noun, rather than be placed in front of it. For example:
Neither! It’s a trick question. We don’t use to congratulate or congratulations in connection with birthdays in English, except in very special cases (18, 21, 100, etc.): we normally just say Happy Birthday or Many happy returns, instead. And we don’t shake hands as we do so.
English spelling is notorious for being confusing. For example, which of these is – or are – correct: programme, program or even programm?
If you don’t like a certain idea, what would you say? I think it’s not a good idea or I don’t think it’s a good idea? Logic would suggest that we should say I think it’s not a good idea: after all, it’s not a good idea is what we think. But in fact I don’t think it’s a good idea is what we normally say when offering a negative opinion or judgement. The negation that really belongs with the second main verb in the sentence is moved to the left and attached to the first one instead. The same happens with many other verbs of opinion or perception:
In English, one of these days means ‘possibly sometime in the future’. It does not mean the same as Dutch een dezer dagen, which is much sooner! So the following two sentences mean quite different things:
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