This sentence is badly constructed

[conuly]

Over the years, moments of interest from her post-Disney life would make headlines, like [...] her impassioned defense of then-nominee for Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford, who turned out to be her aunt.

It took me multiple reads to get to the end in one piece. Sometimes, you just need to throw out the sentence you started with and redo it from scratch. (It doesn't help that in the original form the sentence has another example, which I removed for clarity about which part I was criticizing. That part is fine, but it makes the sentence even longer.)

Comments

[altamira16]

That construction is so bad. They want to get Christine Blasey Ford out there as "accuser" before aunt or recognizing she is a professor or a person in any other way than "accuser." Gross.

[conuly]

I think it's more that they were trying to arrange the details in order of newsworthiness.

[calimac]

Yes. If you read "her impassioned defense of then-nominee for Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh" that leaves a definite impression in one's mind that isn't entirely erased by the mental whiplash generated by the next word.

[conuly]

I can even see how this monstrosity of a sentence was Frankensteined together, but that doesn't make it better.

[frandroid]

I remember when I was in cégep, a French prof told us that after 20 words, it's difficult for most readers to retain the whole sentence in one's head. In the next class, philosophy, I was struggling to get over a sentence, reading it multiple times, until I decided to count the words. 100 words!! That's a lesson that's been seared in my mind. When I edit now I am merciless in separating phrases into their own sentences. One idea at a time, peeps.

[ioplokon]

c'est pas très français, ce conseil. ;)

[ioplokon]

They wanted 'her aunt' to be a twist, but I think they could have flipped the order (defending her aunt, cbf, who...) & not lost much (like, idk it's not that shocking she has an aunt?)

[conuly]

I think it's more that they were attempting to order the sentence in terms of newsworthiness but the result is a jumbled mess.

[hudebnik]

They could have said "impassioned defense of Christine Blasey Ford, who had accused then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, and who was also her aunt." Most people would at least recognize the name "Christine Blasey Ford", even if they didn't remember why, so the next clause would remind them of why, and the parallel "who" dependent clauses would make crystal clear that the subject of both was Ford.

Or, briefer, "impassioned defense of her aunt Christine Blasey Ford, who had accused ..." Which sacrifices the slight twist at the end, but gets everything across clearly, with the bonus that if you do remember why you recognize the name "Christine Blasey Ford", you've already got the whole message before you even get to the comma.

It's like we need a new website

[disgruntledgirl]

"Sorry you loved this sentence but you need to throw it away"