0

The sentence "The principle is, the farther from the scene of horror, the easier the talk." looks and sounds fine to me, but if I wrote it my internal editor would worry vaguely. To make things less vague here are some questions:

Is "the principle" the subject?

Is "is" the verb?

Are the phrases "the farther[...]" and "the easier[...]" adverb phrases or prepositional phrases or something else?

selden
  • 137

1 Answers1

5

Yes, "the principle" is the subject of the verb "is". The complement is the phrase following the first comma.

Here's a question which describes that construct: "the comparative, the comparative" vs. "as-clause"

The statement would be clearer if the principle were to be enclosed in quotes or denoted in some other way, for example by a colon:

The principle is "the farther from the scene of horror, the easier the talk"
The principle is: the farther from the scene of horror, the easier the talk.

Community
  • 1
Andrew Leach
  • 101,901
  • +1 To make the construction more transparent, you could add in the omitted words: "the farther from the scene of horror [it is], the easier the talk [is]". – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 08 '13 at 18:18
  • +1 "The Xer, the Yer" is a fixed construction which although not formally a sentence is a complete utterance. – StoneyB on hiatus Mar 08 '13 at 18:41
  • What is enclosed in a quote or similar structure does not even need to be grammatical: Their motto is 'By and larger'. However, in parallel constructions such as the OP's, the 'quote equivalent' should be reasonably grammatical. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 08 '13 at 20:57