July 8, 2015

Sentence Style Beyond Basic: Yitzhak Rabin


Three Ways to Go beyond Tough-Guy Kernel Predictive Sentences, page-44

Building Great Sentences by Brooks Landon

  1. Add conjunctions or connectives to it.
  2. Add subordinates to it.
  3. Add modifiers to it.

Brainy Tough-Guy-Farmer Style

Elements of Expression by Arthur Plotnik, page 112


Some scholars believe that over-use of kernel/basic predicative sentences is suitable only to uneducated farmers, do-or-die Rambo's, bounty-hunting Clint Eastwood's and so on.

Then what about this extract of speech by Yitzhak Rabin condemning settlers who sanction murder:

"You are not part of the community of Israel. You are not part of the national democratic camp which we all belong to in this house, and many of the people despise you. You are not partners in the Zionist enterprise. You are an foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish law. You are a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism."

You cannot say the speaker here is under-feeling, under-thinking, under-calculating or under-sophisticated. His sentences are simple, even his words are. But the speech as a whole does not sound simplistic. Why?

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