Selection #1:
“Every facility is inadequate- the hospitals and schools and playgrounds are overcrowded, the express highways are feverish, the unimproved highways and bridges are bottlenecks; there is not enough air and not enough light, and there is usually either too much heat or too little.”
This sentence follows the classic method of making a very bold claim and then providing an informal dash (as opposed to a formal colon), behind which are a list of examples that support the claim. The overall goal of this sentence is to improve that New York has inadequate facilities. Just saying this would not be enough to convince the readers, nor would just providing examples because some readers may view it as a random list of facts about New York as opposed to examples that imply something. Splitting the claim and the examples into two sentences would take away from the force of the statement. Therefore, the author has no choice to concisely make the claim then spurt out various examples. The author does so effectively, by discussing various facets of New York’s inadequacy. The strangest part of the example portion of the sentence is that some ideas are divided by commas and others by semicolons. This variation of punctuation is not only used to make the sentence more interesting and less redundant, but also to go from specific examples backing the claim to broader concepts. The overcrowding of the schools, hospitals, and playgrounds, the feverish express highways, and the bottleneck bridges are very specific examples about the facilities, which were mentioned in the original claim. However, the discussion of the air, light, and temperature is not specific just to the facilities but rather discusses the overall environment of New York City- still inadequate, but just of broader scope. The semicolon is placed between the list of inadequate facilities and the list of broader faults overall to help make the sentence easier to read and more fluid.
Selection #2:
“The people seated on the benches fanned out in front of the band shell are attentive, appreciative. In the trees the night wind stirs, bringing the leaves to life, endowing them with speech; the electric lights illuminate the green branches from the underside, translating them into a new language.”
These two sentences use activity for descriptive purpose rather than to move the overall story forward. Although there are plenty of active verbs, including fanned, stirs, bringing, endowing, illuminate, translating, these verbs are not used to introduce points about New York but rather describe the actions of people within New York which then overall contributes to the classification of the city itself. The first sentence employs a classic example of asyndeton, a method of writing in which conjunctions are purposely omitted for greater stylistic effect. The people should be described as “attentive and appreciative,” but instead White just classifies them as “attentive, appreciative.” This omission of “and” gives the sentence a more fluid, relaxed tone, rather than a very rigid feeling that would come from “They were attentive and appreciative.” The asyndeton exemplifies the creative liberty that a writer should show to reach the greatest stylistic power which in turn helps make the point stronger. The second sentence employs a mix of commas and semicolons to describe the city at night. The first portion of the sentence solely lists information about what happens surrounding the trees in New York City. “The wind stirs, bringing the leaves to life, endowing them with speech…” This portion is a very simple sequence of verbs regarding the trees provided by commas. However, the semicolon makes the sentence more complex. The trees and the night are still being discussed, but the subject has been changed to the electric lights, which allows the writer to explore the effect of a new object on the trees while avoiding an awkward transition. Once this is achieved, the same technique is completed” “The electric lights illuminate the green branches from the underside, translating them into a new language.” Another comma is used to provide a sequence of information about the electric lights and their effect on the branches. Both sentences are very powerful, the first through its simplicity and asyndeton, and the second through its two series of information regarding the same topic but with separate subjects and divided by a semicolon.
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