Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 August 16

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August 16

Help break up a very long sentence

This monster sentence is currently most of the lead section of Disability in South Africa:

"As a developing country, and given the legacy of apartheid, the position and status of disabled people in society is extremely heterogeneous, ranging from wealthy city dwellers who have access to a full range of assistance and other necessities to poor shack-dwellers who struggle for even the basic necessities of life."

Please help chop it into bite size chunks, I'm struggling to decide how to cut it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:13, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

I made an attempt. Feel free to work with what I did to continue to improve the article. --Jayron32 14:20, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Jayron32, it's wierd how hard it sometimes is to edit my own writing. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:32, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Some thoughts:

• It didn't seem unreasonably long before, and the commas helped to break it up.

• I would change "country" to "nation". Just sounds better.

• I would change "heterogeneous" to "varied", as more people will understand it that way.

I rewrote it with some of these changes in mind, and took out a lot of duplication, making it shorter. StuRat (talk) 16:11, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

The second sentence starting "As a developing nation..." was not about that at all - it was about disabled people's status; I've recast it to put that first. Bazza (talk) 17:22, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Other languages tend to put the topic right up front, but not English ("I'm driving my car to the store to buy some bread" is just fine). Your rewrite made it rather awkward, so I combined the first 2 sentence to fix that. StuRat (talk) 17:30, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

@StuRat You fixed the awkwardness, but have introduced a statement which wasn't there before. The previous wording simply said that the country is developing and has a history of apartheid, but not that the disability situation is a result of that (which may or may not be true). Bazza (talk) 16:29, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

That certainly was my interpretation. Why else would those facts have been mentioned ? StuRat (talk) 07:10, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

@StuRat The country concerned is considered developing, and has a history of apartheid. That gives some context for the subject. Making the jump to them being the cause of the disability situation is too big without some more explanation (which the body of the article currently does not contain) or, better still, references. I've removed the implication. Bazza (talk) 09:38, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

"shack-dweller" needs replacing or defining. Bazza (talk) 17:24, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Agreed, that seems like an insult. I removed it. StuRat (talk) 17:30, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

In South Africa it is unfortunately everyday reality for millions of people, not an insult - http://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/573189/much-anticipated-ruling-on-future-of-shack-dwellers/ -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:28, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

They aren't saying that living in a shack is insulting, it's the specific term "shack-dweller" which sounds informal and pejorative. A more formal, and less value-laden term could carry the same formal definition without the pejorative sense. --Jayron32 10:31, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Got it, so even though it's an ordinary term in SA English, it is problematic for other readers thus best not used. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:40, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. Colloquialisms can carry different senses in different languages. Consider, for example, Kaffir lime, which in the US doesn't mean anything bad, but I doubt such a lime is known by that name in South Africa, for rather obvious reasons (as explained in the article). --Jayron32 14:16, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

I did not infer any insult. I have no problem with "shack-dweller" if it has a WP article to explain it properly. Bazza (talk) 09:54, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I agree, to a point. Although I broadly agree with Jayron's statement that colloquialisms can be misinterpreted by readers from other dialects, I disagree with Stu's assumption that this would be interpreted, by the average reader of this particular article, to be either colloquial or pejorative. I think the average reader would in fact read that term in a more clinical light, given the context. And as you say, the proper internal link could cement that meaning further. But, all of that said, I still support Stu's edit, because I think the term was superfluous, when I look at the options side by side; changing the noun phrase to simply "the poor" results wording that is clearer, more streamlined, and arguably more accurate by means of broadening the class being described. Snow ^{let's rap} 03:50, 21 August 2017 (UTC)