Please

Please

This sentence is not modelled on a luxury yacht

11 January 2008
Filed under Language, Text, The Media

People paid up to $US100,000 ($A115,000) for the inaugural Singapore Airlines A380 flight last year, in which first class suites with real beds were modelled on luxury yachts, after wiring glitches caused the plane’s delivery to be delayed by two years, causing EADS billions of dollars in losses.

This sentence was already too long when they decided to add the bit about the beds. Why on earth is it relevant, when reporting on an airport mishap, to note that the beds on the plane involved were modelled on luxury yachts?*

It’s a really common construction in stories coming straight off the wires and into the paper: you have the story, which is usually two or three short paragraphs, followed by a gargantuan sentence into which somebody has packed the entire history of the subject, with no regard to whether the clauses in the sentence relate to each other or to the story at large.

* Update: I can’t read.

Views from the Floor

Virginia says:

Here's another one - you just KNOW that when the Government decides it wants the Cocos Islands back, the story will finish with "In 2008, Nicola Clunies-Ross, was charged with but acquitted of the rape of her former boyfriend, using a massive vibrating sex-aid."

WlW says:

Because the beds reference stresses the luxurious element and that is the point that they are making (even the power of luxury doesn't stop a delay). So, a re-write that still did it in one sentence? What about this:

People last year paid up to $US100,000 ($A115,000) for the inaugural Singapore Airlines A380 flight (in which first class suites with real beds were modelled on luxury yachts), after wiring glitches caused both the plane's delivery to be delayed by two years and losses of EADS billions of dollars.

Interesting blog...

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