51a Relating equal ideas
Contents:
Using coordination for special effect
Quick Help: Editing for coordination and subordination
When you want to give equal emphasis to different ideas in a sentence, link them with a coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet) or a semicolon.
They acquired horses, and their ancient nomadic spirit was suddenly free of the ground.
—N. SCOTT MOMADAY, The Way to Rainy Mountain
There is perfect freedom in the mountains, but it belongs to the eagle and the elk, the badger and the bear.
—N. SCOTT MOMADAY, The Way to Rainy Mountain
Coordination can help to make explicit the relationship between two separate ideas.
Connecting these two sentences with a semicolon strengthens the connection between two closely related ideas.
When you connect ideas in a sentence, make sure that the relationship between the ideas is clear.
What does being a common form of leisure have to do with replacing human contact? Changing and to but better relates the two ideas.
Using coordination for special effect
Coordination can create special effects, as in a passage by Carl Sandburg describing the American reaction to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.
Men tried to talk about it and the words failed and they came back to silence.
To say nothing was best.
Lincoln was dead.
Was there anything more to say?
Yes, they would go through the motions of grief and they would take part in a national funeral and a ceremony of humiliation and abasement and tears.
But words were no help.
Lincoln was dead.
—CARL SANDBURG, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years
Everything in the passage is grammatically equal, flattened out by the pain and shock of the death. In this way, the sentence structure and grammar mirror the dazed state of the populace. The short sentences and independent clauses are almost like sobs that illustrate the thought of the first sentence, that “the words failed.”