Note 29 – Sentence order

For the background to my writing challenge, please read my first blog by clicking the following link – http://wp.me/p1x6Ui-4.  If you would prefer to dive straight into note 29, then please read on…

‘Order’ in a sentence

According to Bernard C Lamb in his book The Queen’s English, the most popular way of ordering your sentences would be subject, verb and then the remaining parts:

1. Subject – verb – and then the rest:

• Holly is pretty
• Chocolate melts in your mouth
• The train arrived late

To break the first sentence down: ‘Holly’ is the subject, ‘is’ is the verb and ‘pretty’ is the object.

To write all your sentences like the above may make your writing a little boring.  To spice things up you could vary your order (example 2) or put another word or phrase before your sentence (example 3) as follows:

2. Verb – Subject – and then the rest:

• Is Holly pretty?
• Melt chocolate slowly in your mouth

3. Phrase – subject – verb – and then the rest:

• Due to delays, the train arrived late
• There’s no denying it,  Holly is pretty

Should you split the subject and verb?

Whilst you can play around with the order of your sentences, it isn’t advisable to put a word or phrase between the subject and the verb.  I will cover this area tomorrow.

I hope you are enjoying my writing blogs.  Remember, you can also subscribe (if you haven’t already).  I also take requests on any areas of writing that you would like to see a blog about.  I’m always happy to help.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra

This blog: http://mywritingnotes.wordpress.com

My other blog: http://sandramadeira.wordpress.com

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Twitter: @madeirasandra  and  @tipsandluxuries

Reference list

Bernard C. Lamb The Queen’s English (2010), UK