The order of things

Remember to always stretch before exercising your judgment. Even the bison know this.

I'm still working on how there could be two horizons.

Nothing grammatically wrong with the sentence, other than it's not a very good one. It violates one of my major pet peeves, the "There was X that did Y" sentence structure.

"The herd of buffalo stretched from horizon to horizon." is sufficient.

caw

The herd of buffalo appreared to stretch the length of the horizon.

This is probably getting a little off-topic, but I've been editing a big technical academic publication tonight, and my editor's spidey-sense is activated. To me, a big improvement in the subject sentence would both clear out any lingering confusion over "horizon to horizon" and make it stronger and more immediate. Something like:

"The herd of buffalo stretched as far as they (I, we) could see." (Dependent on POV). That structure is at least equally expressive, and brings the narrator or viewer into the scene. I've often found that when I stumble over some sentence I've written in rough draft, it's a signal of weak writing. Finding an alternative way to say it commonly cures all ills.

caw

eleven said:

Someone recently posted the example of the sentence “She pulled the knife from its sheath and stabbed him with it” to illustrate how word order affects meaning, which has got me thinking about the order of words and how they affect one another.
So what about the following sentence?

There was a herd of buffalo that stretched from horizon to horizon.

As far as my limited knowledge of grammar goes, “herd of buffalo” in this sentence is a single subject rather than two separate ones as in the sheath stabbing incident, but then I can’t help imagining giant buffalo stretching across the landscape.

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The subject of the sentence is herd. of buffalo is a prepositional phrase that acts as a adjective to describe herd. that stretched from horizon to horizon is a dependent clause, but it's unclear whether it's meant to modify herd or buffalo. That's all there is to it. As a reader, I'd assume it was describing herd, though I'd still have trouble imagining two horizons. I'd change the dependent clause to that stretched across the horizon at least.

Oh, and as for the original sentence?

“She pulled the knife from its sheath and stabbed him with it”

The subject is she. knife is the direct object of the first verb pulled, meaning it's the answer to the question: "she pulled what"? from its sheath is a prepositional phrase acting as an adverb, describing where the girl pulled from knife from. him is the direct object of the second verb stabbed, i.e. the answer to the question: "she stabbed who"? with it is a prepositional phrase acting as an adverb describing how she stabbed him. it is the object of the prepositional phrase, but the problem is that it's a pronoun without a clear antecedent. The solution? Just omit the "with it." It's not needed.

kuwisdelu said:

the problem is that it's a pronoun without a clear antecedent. The solution? Just omit the "with it." It's not needed.

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Bingo. Good call. Perfect example of how to trim your prose without pain and angst.

caw

There was a herd of buffalo that stretched across the horizon

When you say 'stretched', I can't help but visualize buffalo standing on their hind quarters, stretching, yawning, perhaps scratching themselves.

For as far as I could see, buffalo dotted the plains below all the way to the far horizon, where they were nothing more than an undistiguishable dark mass.

Mumut said:

There was a herd of buffalo that stretched across the horizon

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(There was) A herd of buffalo (that) stretched across the horizon.

Quick, remove the italicized and parenthicized words and tell me how the sentence differs in meaning.

caw

blacbird said:

(There was) A herd of buffalo (that) stretched across the horizon.

Quick, remove the italicized and parenthicized words and tell me how the sentence differs in meaning.

caw

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Exactly! "There was" and "that" are unnecessary.

Inky said:

When you say 'stretched', I can't help but visualize buffalo standing on their hind quarters, stretching, yawning, perhaps scratching themselves.

For as far as I could see, buffalo dotted the plains below all the way to the far horizon, where they were nothing more than an undistiguishable dark mass.

Click to expand...

Amazing I was thinking of the word "dotted" too, but "dotted with buffalo" in an apositif to make it sounds more active. Of course, the lightning also forked the sky in my vision. In my case, the lush green field and the sky will take precedence even over the herd.

See, I can 'see' the lightning 'forking' the sky...it's called word painting...when you wrote that bit, I totally saw the imagery you created!