0

I was reading an amateur novel which had this sentence:

Humans by nature, at least in this day and age are fickle creatures.

My immediate thought was that the comma placement was wrong. My first instinct was to place them like this:

Humans, by nature, at least in this day and age, are fickle creatures.

but the two adjacent parentheticals in the middle seem awkward when written like that, making me think it might be incorrect.

Both of these sentences seem correct:

Humans, by nature, are fickle creatures.

Humans, at least in this day and age, are fickle creatures.

and removing any commas seems like it would be incorrect. But when combining the two sentences, the first comma feels awkward, and it seems to flow a bit better without it, like this:

Humans by nature, at least in this day and age, are fickle creatures.

But that also seems incorrect since removing the parenthetical "at least in this day and age" leaves "Humans by nature are fickle creatures.", a sentence that seems incorrect without any commas.

The best solution I could come up with is this:

Humans, by nature—at least in this day and age—are fickle creatures.

but even this feels subpar at best.

Is there a way correct way (or ways) to write a sentence like this, with adjacent parentheticals in the middle?

Adam
  • 55
  • 2
    Humans by nature is short enough not to need a breath. But by nature and in this day and age sound contradictory. – Yosef Baskin Jun 09 '23 at 15:03
  • @Yosef Baskin So would you say "Humans by nature are fickle creatures" is also correct? It feels wrong to me. I think part of the issue is that the pause between "humans" and "by" is shorter than the pauses between "nature" and "in" and between "age" and "are". But I do think that there is a pause between "humans" and "by". – Adam Jun 09 '23 at 15:20
  • I'd rewrite the example as say 'Humans are by nature, as is well recognised nowadays, fickle creatures.' [As 'by nature' means 'innately', the time dependency in the original seems at odds with the rest of the statement.] 'By nature' is more a part of the matrix sentence than parenthetical (in fact, some would cry 'redundancy'). – Edwin Ashworth Jun 09 '23 at 15:24
  • @EdwinAshworth If that's the case, would you also say that the sentence "Humans are by nature fickle creatures" is correct? To me, it seems like a reordering of "Humans are fickle creatures by nature", requiring the commas to insert it into the middle of the sentence. – Adam Jun 09 '23 at 15:43
  • 1
    Humans by nature are fickle creatures. If you orate before a large crowd, you can add the bombast of "Humans. By nature. Are fickle creatures." But only because lecturers by nature are theatrical. – Yosef Baskin Jun 09 '23 at 15:47
  • 1
    As Yosef says, punctuation often doubles as a desired-cadence-indicator (in addition to its parsing-policing role). I've no problem with << Humans, by nature, are ... >> even though I don't see 'by nature' as a true parenthetical here, any more than I do 'intrinsically' in << Humans are intrinsically ... >>. And note that zero punctuation is not absolutely proscribed when parenthetical offsetting is considered. See Usage of brackets, parentheses etc. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 09 '23 at 18:36
  • 1
    Dashes salvage a sentence that, as @yosefbaskin, points out, doesn't make sense. – Roister Jun 10 '23 at 18:34

0 Answers0