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20 Feb 2021, 13:50
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Hello, everyone. I wanted to create a post on a grammatical convention called asyndeton, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as "the omission or absence of a conjunction between parts of a sentence." I took interest in the topic in light of a recent string of posts by vv65 and GMATGuruNY, one that has played out on page 3 of the thread to the following official SC question that employs this feature:
Just last night, I was revisiting a favorite novel from my college days, and I came across two sentences in the first few pages that employed the same feature:
1) It was the hour of the day when people feel too exhausted to breathe, when Moscow glows in a dry haze as the sun disappears behind Sadovaya Street—yet no one had come out for a walk under the limes, no one was sitting on a bench, the avenue was empty.
2) The poet, for whom everything the editor was saying was a novelty, listened attentively, fixing Mikhail Alexandrovich with his bold green eyes, occasionally hiccuping and cursing the apricot juice under his breath.
I would bet that if the first sentence appeared in similar fashion on a GMATTM SC question, many people would nix it and write a two-word justification: no AND, or, for the more grammar-proficient, comma splice. But the conjunction yet can be carried over to the head of each clause in the list as an understood element, a continuation of the same thought:
a) yet no one had come out for a walk under the limes
b) [yet] no one was sitting on a bench
c) [yet] the avenue was empty
Perhaps the translation was faithful to the Russian original, and punctuation conventions could be different between the two languages. But I am of a mind that the sentence operates more fluidly, more poetically, without "and" disrupting it. +1 for asyndeton.
As for the second sentence, yes, there is an "and" at the end, but this is not the "and" that separates the penultimate item from the last; the second item branches, such that the structure of the list of modifiers is X, Y and Y rather than X, Y and Z (without an Oxford comma). An isolated sentence might not reveal as much conclusively, but the context of the passage indicates that the poet is hiccuping as a result of drinking the apricot juice. Again, I prefer the sentence as is. If you picture it with "and" between the two modifying phrases—fixing... AND occasionally hiccuping and cursing—it sounds almost like a run-on, getting in its own way. Again, +1 for asyndeton.
It is not necessary to know such an arcane grammatical term—you are preparing for the GMATTM, not Jeopardy!—but its application is at least worth taking note of, and although the topic seems to come up infrequently enough that it would not warrant inclusion in SC guides, perhaps you would be the [un]lucky one to see such a question, and it would be a shame to see a potentially perfect Verbal score fall to an apparently missing "and."
I hope this grammatical niche has piqued your interest. Maybe you will start to see asyndeton crop up where you had not noticed it before. Happy reading, and as always, good luck with your studies.
- Andrew
Quote:
Note the lack of an "and" to connect the final item in the list to the other two. Many GMATTM aspirants dismiss the sentence outright because they place stock in an imaginary rule that all lists must employ a conjunction at the end to tip off the reader that the list is wrapping up. (For those of you familiar with my posts, you know that I eschew absolute thinking in the majority of situations. Even if I think I know something, I allow for the possibility that I know less than I believe I do.) Such thinking is wayward in this case. The VERB-ed modifiers are all perfectly parallel, with a one-word adverb ahead of each one to boot, and the clear and concise expression of vital meaning is flawless. The sentence is not broken, so there is no need to fix it.
Just last night, I was revisiting a favorite novel from my college days, and I came across two sentences in the first few pages that employed the same feature:
1) It was the hour of the day when people feel too exhausted to breathe, when Moscow glows in a dry haze as the sun disappears behind Sadovaya Street—yet no one had come out for a walk under the limes, no one was sitting on a bench, the avenue was empty.
2) The poet, for whom everything the editor was saying was a novelty, listened attentively, fixing Mikhail Alexandrovich with his bold green eyes, occasionally hiccuping and cursing the apricot juice under his breath.
I would bet that if the first sentence appeared in similar fashion on a GMATTM SC question, many people would nix it and write a two-word justification: no AND, or, for the more grammar-proficient, comma splice. But the conjunction yet can be carried over to the head of each clause in the list as an understood element, a continuation of the same thought:
a) yet no one had come out for a walk under the limes
b) [yet] no one was sitting on a bench
c) [yet] the avenue was empty
Perhaps the translation was faithful to the Russian original, and punctuation conventions could be different between the two languages. But I am of a mind that the sentence operates more fluidly, more poetically, without "and" disrupting it. +1 for asyndeton.
As for the second sentence, yes, there is an "and" at the end, but this is not the "and" that separates the penultimate item from the last; the second item branches, such that the structure of the list of modifiers is X, Y and Y rather than X, Y and Z (without an Oxford comma). An isolated sentence might not reveal as much conclusively, but the context of the passage indicates that the poet is hiccuping as a result of drinking the apricot juice. Again, I prefer the sentence as is. If you picture it with "and" between the two modifying phrases—fixing... AND occasionally hiccuping and cursing—it sounds almost like a run-on, getting in its own way. Again, +1 for asyndeton.
It is not necessary to know such an arcane grammatical term—you are preparing for the GMATTM, not Jeopardy!—but its application is at least worth taking note of, and although the topic seems to come up infrequently enough that it would not warrant inclusion in SC guides, perhaps you would be the [un]lucky one to see such a question, and it would be a shame to see a potentially perfect Verbal score fall to an apparently missing "and."
I hope this grammatical niche has piqued your interest. Maybe you will start to see asyndeton crop up where you had not noticed it before. Happy reading, and as always, good luck with your studies.
- Andrew
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20 Feb 2021, 14:47
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Wow! That is pretty interesting. I never thought about it but this is super helpful to have. I feel naturally I always add in and into my list but that seems due to habit rather than grammar. ...
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21 Feb 2021, 07:17
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bb
Exactly, bb: "habit" is the operative word. Interestingly enough, we can tell that a child is learning grammatical rules correctly when he or she incorrectly employs logic to deduce, say, a new verb conjugation that ends up being off to a more mature speaker:
I haved a dollar, and I spended it.
Exposure to asyndeton is similar, in my eyes. I imagine most people would think it was strange not to see an "and" complete a list of items for the first time, but language is an irregular creature, and certain topics are better learned on a case-by-case basis. Since this particular lesser-known grammatical convention has shown up on GMAT™ SC questions, I thought I would give it more attention than a page 3 dialogue to one question from the OG.
- Andrew
