Re: not only but also...

"Ray" <raymondaliasapollyon@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
dontbother wrote:
Nick Spalding <spalding@xxxxxx> wrote
Ray wrote
Ray wrote:
[...]
Not only will you find the Russian language courses offered
listed below, but also any special Russian literature and
culture classes that will be available.
[...]
How would you revise the sentence? How about the following?

Listed below are not only the current courses on the Russian
language but also those on Russian literature and culture
that will be offered.

How about the following revision?

Below you will find not only the courses on the Russian
language that are currently offered, but also those on Russian
literature and culture that will be offered.

I see nothing wrong with the original.

It's verbose, as David pointed out. That's all that's wrong with
it. The revision Ray offers isn't an improvement on that. Keeping
the

Only verbose? Don't you think the concatenation of two
participles-- "offered" and "listed"-- in the original is rather
awkward?

You have a point there, but I had no trouble reading it aloud or
silently. That can be taken care of by removing the verbosity, which
requires a rewrite.

You don't think my use of the more idiomatic structure "below are
listed..." represents an improvement over the original?

One problem with the first and second rewrites is that you've changed
"Russian language courses" into "courses on the Russian language". I
understand those two phrases to mean two different things. The first
phrase means courses in Russian as a foreign language, and the second
means courses about, for example, the history of the Russian language.

unwarranted "not only...but also..." structure forces unnecessary
prolixity in this instance.

I kept "not only...but also" because I was reading something that
cautions us against the misplacement of "not only". So I wanted to
prettify the sentence with "not only but also" in its proper
place. Now it seems to be a lost cause, though.

It doesn't prettify the sentence; it merely lengthens it. Such
structures have functions in a larger discourse, but without that, they
are, as you suggest, linguistic embellishments that usually do no more
than clutter the sentence. We're still in the spare, stark Form Follows
Function phase of English. Shakespeare represents one of the high
points of embellished English, but that kind of writing is archaic
these days.

"Listed below are currently offered Russian language courses and
planned Russian literature and culture coures"

would make the sentence significantly (40%) shorter and much
easier to read.

Do you think that compound nouns are preferred to a noun phrase
like "a course in Russian literature"?

In such a short announcement, yes. If we were talking about an essay
filled with long and ponderous compound nouns, no.

And is the repetition of the word 'course' ok?

In this instance, yes. I prefer not to use "those" in this context. But
all style choices are personal.

I'm sure there are a few other and better ways of saying it.

--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan.
Unmunged email: /at/hush.ai
"Impatience is the mother of misery."
.

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