Sentence Structure (Latter / Former)

hakandragon

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I'm wondering about a sentence. Something just doesn't quite 'feel' right about it. I think I'm so used to seeing things like 'the former who had been convinced...blah blah blah' or 'the latter who had convinced...whatever' you know what I mean? But I don't want to use any 'latter/former' in the sentence. The sentence is:

"It was just Eliot and Parker now, who had been convinced by Eliot to have a beer for a change, instead of just water."

Of course it is Parker who has been convinced to have a beer. But I'm wondering if it's redundant or possibly even not clear enough in the sentence. Does it work the way it is? I just can't tell.



LOL, I'll shut up now and see what y'all think XD
 

Priene

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Your problem is that you've concatenated several sentences together, so you start off on one subject and end on another:

It was just Eliot and Parker now.
Parker had been convinced by Eliot to have a drink.
Parker normally drank water, but this time was persuaded by Eliot to have a beer.
 

Dawnstorm

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Actually, the problem is two-fold:

1. ambiguity:

(Eliot and Parker), (who...) vs. (Eliot) and (Parker, who...)

As soon as you hit "by Eliot", it's clear which applies, but by then it's too late (except maybe for speed readers; I'm not one, so I wouldn't know).

2. The "now" is between the noun phrase and the modifying clause. To my reading (not sure if others agree) this heightens the expectation that the "who"-clause modifies (Eliot and Parker) rather than just (Eliot).

The simplest fix would be:

It was just Eliot now, and Parker, who had been convinced by Eliot...​

or the active voice version:

it was just Eliot now, and Parker, whom he had convinced...​

(Instead of the comma after "now" you could try a dash.)

There's more emphasis on Parker, though, in this version.

There are other rewrites (such as making "Eliot" the subject of the sentence), but all these are dependent on context, so I can't comment on those.
 
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RJK

RJK

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I think the passive voice hurts you too.
Thy this:
It was just the two of them now. Eliot convinced Parker to have a beer, rather than water, his usual drink.
 
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