Improve Your Life with Cumulative Sentences

[@achannel1818]

Treating words like a precious resource wouldve meant we never got this gem. Krunk: Oh, right. The poison. The poison for Kuzco, the poison chosen especially to kill Kuzco, Kuzco's poison. That poison? Yzma : Yes! That poison!

[@joelturnbull9005]

Your videos fill me with such joy, bubbling up and popping all over, as I listen with glee to the beautiful words tumbling effortlessly from a man of such eloquence and learning, teaching and inspiring me as I iron my shirts.

[@WritingwithAndrew]

You're too kind--I'm honored to have a role in saving you from the drudgery of ironing shirts!

[@johnsorrentino6630]

Learning via the medium of video is by far the greatest thing for me. I never enjoyed English classes and performed poorly in them, but I enjoy writing with stories and poems, so much so that I see the differences in the sentences. I can’t explain to why certain sentences work “better” than others, but I can see and hear the difference. These videos help me build a visual cue to all the analytical terms placed in the English grammar world. Thanks!

[@WritingwithAndrew]

I'm glad to hear it--thanks!

[@AllisonMariePhD]

This is why I just use Andrew’s videos for instructing my online writing courses. He presents writing in a way that I simply cannot, but reflects what happens in my head when I write.

[@malazkarar1171]

I was discouraged from using accumulative sentences in my ENG 101. I didn't know it's a valid way to write. I'm glad I can now run with it since I tend to think in accumulative sentences. On a side note, I'm enjoying the character development of the skull, how he's slowly warming up to the show and is becoming more active in the process rather than passive and snarky.

[@kaputmortuum]

And I'm learning to regret it along the way...

[@lightningninja6905]

The bit about defining run ons blew me away. I never really understood what people meant when they talked about them. I always thought it meant containing too many commas. I also found that the skipping across stones/going through a river comparision made the idea more concrete, and the desicion to have the example sentences reflect that in both form and content was fantasitc.

[@WritingwithAndrew]

Thanks!

[@Stephen-Fox]

There are very few sentences that I recall having joy at encountering for the sentence itself, and one of the more memorable ones is a cumulative sentence. I won't claim to have recalled this joy from the first time I encountered it, but the first time I read it for myself rather than having it read to me as a child. From Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne: "In after-years he liked to think that he had been in Very Great Danger during the Terrible Flood, but the only danger he had really been in was in the last half-hour of his imprisonment, when Owl, who had just flown up, sat on a branch of his tree to comfort him, and told him a very long story about an aunt who had once laid a seagull's egg by mistake, and the story went on and on, rather like this sentence, until Piglet who was listening out of his window without much hope, went to sleep quietly and naturally, slipping slowly out of the window towards the water until he was only hanging on by his toes, at which moment luckily, a sudden loud squawk from Owl, which was really part of the story, being what his aunt said, woke the Piglet up and just gave him time to jerk himself back into safety and say, "How interesting, and did she?" when-well, you can imagine his joy when at last he saw the good ship, Brain of Pooh (Captain, C. Robin; 1st Mate, P. Bear) coming over the sea to rescue him." It uses its own length as an analogy, providing eloquence via its deliberate lack of brevity. Which is just a cool bit of prose, really.

[@mikesmithz]

This is the good stuff! I'm having awful trouble trying to make my sentences longer, so this video is perfect! Thanks for posting!

[@WritingwithAndrew]

Happy to hear it--you bet!

[@ab1otic222]

As always, a joyful episode of useful and interesting information on the art of writing, wrapped in delightful whimsey that leans gently into the preternatural megalomania that is usually bereft from our lives.

[@DorkOfTheFifth]

Thank you for the superlative “funnest”!

[@WritingwithAndrew]

Anytime

[@mcrumph]

I love these. Upon the occasion of my first page-long sentence, I could not have been more pleased, although I will say that strict grammar is for logicians & Historians, while the fiction writer, I believe, should use grammar to control the pace of consumption of the reader, the shorter the sentences, the faster they consume, while the longer, more involved, more subordinated piles of words forces them to slow down, take their time, enjoy the meal set before them. It is nice, though, when one can use grammar properly while still intensifying the experience. I may have recommended it before, but please read Stanley Fish's How to Write a Sentence (& How to Read One). Thanks so much for this & I wish you well.

[@joshua_tobler]

The lore deepens...

[@kaputmortuum]

...it is fathomless...

[@richardglady3009]

Thank you.

[@richardglady3009]

I have been reading English translations of the French authors, Dumas, Hugo and Zola. Boy, talk about cumulative sentences. The sentences are both beautiful in their descriptive power (Zola especially), but challenging in their complexity. Thanks for explaining this tool used by these authors.

[@WritingwithAndrew]

Very cool!

[@Moookar]

Thank you for the wonderful video! I laughed out loud multiple times. I’m definitely going to go look at the earlier videos of yours that you mentioned :)

[@WritingwithAndrew]

Ha, thanks!

[@smallrose323]

your videos are so informative and make me smile, thank you

[@yapdog]

One might argue that, in my prose, I use far too many cumulative sentences, sentences that creep onward like an hour hand till the sun escapes our weary view, never to return before our eyes part, crusted with the hope of a new day, a cleansing, a rebirth, only to be greeted with the remains of the day before, the screen across the room, a screen overrun and overdone with this passage.

[@WritingwithAndrew]

Anyone who thinks that one could use too many cumulative sentences is living an unnecessarily austere life

[@yapdog]

@@WritingwithAndrew Once again, we are in sync, my young friend😁

[@AndreAlforque]

Thank you for this wonderful video, a video that inspires experimentation while instilling confidence that we should play with grammar, because this video highlights the importance of one of the most important aspects of language: effective communication.

[@WritingwithAndrew]

You bet--and big thanks to you too!

[@tbone2885]

I think it's important to note that culminative sentences should always be tied to function or purpose within the prose. Think of when the form of the sentence (the culmination) enhances the content. For instance, you arrive at location and you're soaking in the landscape; the culminative sentence might function like a panoramic picture, trying to capture everything in a single view. There are many more uses, so be imaginative. But my advice is, just because you can, you shouldn't always do it. Consider the role of the culminative and it's effect.

[@KyleMaxwell]

I internalized the desire for conciseness so much that I now feel conflicted. Yes, the cumulative sentences were fun and playful, but my editing fingers started wiggling with desire to straighten them out and put them in “order”.

[@WritingwithAndrew]

Let the language maximalism flow through you...! 😆

[@crix_h3eadshotgg992]

The skull is warming up towards the show??? There is an imposter am-

[@Onthewayover]

Beautiful! About time someone called Hemingway and the Struck train propaganda! (I have utmost respect for their style and control, but for the love of the craft, let's stop starving our prose!)

[@WritingwithAndrew]

Hear hear! 😆

[@rskeen500]

Forgive my ignorance but who is Struck?

[@WritingwithAndrew]

A reference to the oft-quoted style guide by Strunk and White

[@Zen.Kyokushinkai]

Robotic Destiny Warriors ☑️

[@graf_paper]

This all really reminds me of reading John Updike 😅

[@alexwelts2553]

Was your skull friend in the creek with me in the 80s?

[@kaputmortuum]

Surely, you're not thinking I can account for my whereabouts during the 80s...