Nominalizations

I think both sentences are clunky, and most people enter rooms via a door so why mention it? And, to my eye, in each case the sequence of actions is wrong.

Quit worrying and instead aim for clarity through simplicity, which is usually achieved by saying what one means rather than trying to write long sentences.

motormind said:

I know about the rule about avoiding nominalizations, but find that I use them quite a bit. FOr example, take a sentence like this one:

"She entered through the door, glancing around the room."

I especially like to use them in long sentences, to indicate that a person is doing several things at a time or in short succession. Of course I could do something like this:

"She entered through the door as she glanced around the room ."

But using "as" or "while" all the time becomes boring too. Splitting the actions in several short sentences sometimes works, but usually makes for a very clunky read.

So, does anyone have any ideas about this?

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The problem is that the construct you're referring to is often misused. "Closing the door, he walked down the stairs." is a good example. You can't do both at the same time, so the sentence shouldn't imply that is what's happening. Also, using several short setences is fine, but splitting sentences with commas without using a conjuction is a grammar error. A sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a period, question mark or exclamation mark.

motormind said:

"She entered through the door, glancing around the room."

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She can glance through the door, but she can't really look around until she's all the way in. Maybe try . . .

She entered and glanced around the room.

Once inside, she glanced around.

She entered through the door as she glanced around the room.

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Again, hard to do without x-ray vision.

The major problem with the "-ing phrases" is they frequently set up physical impossibilities or they defy proper temporal sequence (both have been mentioned in posts above). I know you made the sentence up, but it does both--it's impossible to glance around the room before entering and the proper temporal sequence is to enter then look around. The reason I mention both is sometimes "-ing phrases" join another action that does not create a physical impossibilty, but still creates a temporal mismatch--when the intent is to show the two actions are going on at the same time, but in reality they can't do so. One has to come before the other.

There are plenty of uses that are just fine, though, as they neither set up an impossibility nor violate proper temporal sequence. In these cases, the only other worry is whether the "-ing" action becomes too incidental and unimportant since it is shoved off in a dependent clause.

She can glance through the door, but she can't really look around until she's all the way in. Maybe try . . .

She entered and glanced around the room.

Once inside, she glanced around.

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Ulee beat me to it, but this made it clunky to me too.

By the way, this is not nominalization: the -ing words are not nouns (or gerunds, as they're called). Simply saying "glancing" doesn't make it a noun. It will has to be used specifically as a gerund:


What you're talking about is called a participial clause -- one that contains a [present] participle. Participial clauses may also contain a past participle.

Participial clauses can be confusing because they look like great alternatives to the tiresome conjunctions. But the problem is many people use them wrong. Participial clauses denote simultaneous actions.

The following violates that state of "simultaneousness":


Both are "grammatically" correct but semantically not.

Your original sentence would be better written as:


That said, back to your original question, I do like to use participial clauses because they can be very useful: to break the tiresome construct of "subject+verb+object," or to string multiple actions together -- they create a nice rhythm. But you have to use them for simultaneous/concurrent actions:



p.s. another drawback of participial clauses is sometimes the subject-verb agreement is violated:


So beware.

"She entered through the door as she glanced around the room ."

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This sentence points dramatically at one of my pettest peeves in as-abuse. Here are two actions that are neither simultaneous nor quite consecutive, connected by an as-splice. She can't glance around the room until she is in it, so the as-ing puts her actions in reverse order! You could say that she "glanced around the room as she entered" -- if you had to.

"She entered through the door" seems to imply that she preferred that to entering through the window or chimney...

motormind said:

If I have learned something from this thread, is that I should be very careful coming up with an example.

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Don't worry about it, it's a common mistake. But seldom made twice.

I'm a fan of simplicity:

She entered the room, glanced around.

-Derek

Yes. It usually lacks clarity.

motormind said:

If I have learned something from this thread, is that I should be very careful coming up with an example. It's totally irrelevant for my question whether someone glances around the room or dances the rumba--I only wondered if that particular syntactical construction is considered bad style in general.

That's what I get for trying to write fast! But thanks for all the responses; I somehow get the gist of what you're trying to say. I think.

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motormind said:

If I have learned something from this thread, is that I should be very careful coming up with an example. It's totally irrelevant for my question whether someone glances around the room or dances the rumba--I only wondered if that particular syntactical construction is considered bad style in general.

That's what I get for trying to write fast! But thanks for all the responses; I somehow get the gist of what you're trying to say. I think.

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Your example was probably the best part of the whole thread because there are many, many people who read these threads but don't post, and a lesson that may not have been needed by you could be a lesson that several other people did need. If only a few of the lurkers would come out with a post here and confirm the thread's usefulness, you'd probably see how much your thread has helped people. The value of threads and posts at AW goes well beyond the immediate help given to the original poster, so don't ever regret a made-up example that draws a lot of comment.

Took me a while to see what you mean, because the example you gave was spot-on for a very frequent mistake. But there's nothing wrong with, "Dancing the rumba, she spun into the room," or "Humming a tune, he washed the dishes." The only problem comes when consecutive actions are described as simultaneous. Or, of course, when you use one style of sentence so often as to become self-parody.