Sunday, June 17, 2007

Candy Spelling Needs to Dash

This is what Tori Spelling's mom wrote to Britney Spears:

You've driven me back to my laptop to ask why, if you have to slither in and out of cars, do clumsy imitations of gymnasts and wear clothes that are just too tight, trashy or skimpy, do you have to pose in front of photographers all the time?

We had to read this sentence several times to understand what Candy Spelling was talking about. We think sentence diagramming exercises are boring, so we're not going to go through that here. But this is a case where the use of a dash -- or a decision to break the sentence into two parts -- would have been a good thing.

Otherwise, when you nest clauses into clauses, it can be hard to keep track of your point. So, here are two choices:

You've driven me back to my laptop to ask why -- if you have to slither in and out of cars, do clumsy imitations of gymnasts and wear clothes that are just too tight, trashy or skimpy -- do you have to pose in front of photographers all the time?

If you must slither in and out of cars, doing clumsy imitations of gymnasts and wearing clothes that are just too tight, trashy or skimpy, why do you have to pose in front of photographers all the time?

Or, the shorter version:

If you must slither in and out of cars wearing clothes skimpy, trashy clothes, why do you pose in front of photographers all the time?

Another choice, of course, is to keep your nose-job out of other people's business, especially when you have a daughter whose million-dollar wedding ended in divorce after she had an affair with her married co-star. Then, no one will mock your writing or your own family dramas. Just a thought...

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