emphasizing

06:39 Sep 25, 2014 

Thank you for the comprehensive explanation!

Needed to let it settle a bit. Personally, I like your rephrased version as far as I can understand it. It actually gave me a better idea of what the author meant to say, and I'm now starting to think that his choice of "usual story" was not that great.

To your Kudoz-rule question: Some question that may seem easy at first, are much more complicated than indicated (hey, we got more than 40 discussion entries here!), but if you're specialized in a certain field, you may even be able to answer questions in a few minutes while others take hours to find something. It is just a bit puzzling sometimes.

Thank you also for your patience. I do realize that my last questions probably resulted in too many discussion board entries, but as I am a person who can (almost) never turn down an opportunity to compare languages, I couldn't resist. To a German, it is quite fascinating to see that other languages put or omit commas while you just put commas all over the place in German. My comments about too long and the like because of subheading also only referred to English. In German, even long subheadings are nothing unusual.

Mille grazie!

21:04 Sep 14, 2014 

This was a radically new idea in evolutionary thinking, at the time, and is still unclear in its mechanisms: the “new take” addresses the point by adding a rather sophisticate description of population dynamics in very unstable climate conditions – calling it “luck” is, IMO, almost an insider's joke.
I didn’t ask for a rephrasing, nor for a discussion on the use of commas in relative sentences (in several languages!) – but it’s all very interesting, so thank you again. Also, thanks to Björn Starke for worrying about my translation – just to let you know, I have proposed to the editors of the Italian magazine an extensive rephrasing: “Una nuova e radicale rielaborazione della storia dell’evoluzione umana aggiunge una dose di fortuna alla consolidata nozione dell’importanza centrale della cultura materiale” – with my reasons for it and a more conservative version, just in case. And, no, in Italian it is not too long…
Last, and really least (just curious): how do you apply the kudoz rules about non-professional questions to single language ones?

20:56 Sep 14, 2014 

I regret not being able to give the points to Charles, but wish to thanks to everybody for their contributions. I think I can safely conclude that the sentence is both correct and understandable, but might be unnecessarily confusing or misleading even for (some) native speaker.
Let me repeat that specialized knowledge shouldn’t be necessary to understand subtitles in this magazine (they should be addressed to “lay” readers); and that in this case, a generic knowledge of the subject-matter would be misleading: this “usual story” is not the one taught in secondary school – the latter is the standard story of how tool-making was central to the evolution of one specie, Homo sapiens; the first the story of how, at a given point in the evolution of the whole ominin family, with its several genera and more species (and a much longer time-span), tool-making and material culture came to influence the speciation process itself. (to be continued)

11:30 Sep 10, 2014 

3) Now, this text is translated into Italian, a language that requires comma(s) for non-restrictive clauses.

I hope I've taken the right example from Maria's link:
"Più tardi verrà a trovarci il nuovo vicino, che si è trasferito qui da soli quindici giorni."

There you see the comma before the relative clause.

My conclusion: It is important to Alfredo's translation. Should be non-restrictive with a comma.

PS: Please also remember that Alfredo said it was a subheading. In all honesty: In all my years of studying sociology, I have never read such a clumsy, long, and complicated second heading of a scientific article.

How about:
A radical new take on human evolution says that our forebears needed more than just their tool-making skills: They needed a lot of luck as well.

It may still be quite a long subheading. But turning the sentence around would also shift the emphasis to where it should be: on luck, not on "the usual story". It's a subheading - it's not embedded into a paragraph!

11:27 Sep 10, 2014 

Thank you so much for the explanations!

Reading Spanish isn't a problem for me, my writing skills have just become bad because I haven't practised in years. Similarly, I could read most of the Italian text.

@Maria Yes, I even know some newspapers that like long sentences (USA Today comes to mind). Now, that we established how restrictive and non-restrictive clauses are handled in different languages, let me add the following:

1) The point here is: There shouldn't have been a participle. As Charles explained, there is only one "usual story", and this usual story emphasizes tool-making ability above all else. The "new take" says: No, it's not only about ability, there was also a lot of luck involved in our evolution.

2) Thus, the clause after "usual story" should have been written as you suggested, Maria: as a non-restrictive clause describing in more detail what people usually get to hear when it comes to evolution. It should have read: "adds a large dose of luck to the usual story, which emphasizes the importance".

I disagree with B D Finch: A non-restrictive "which" does not have to introduce ambiguity - whether something is ambiguous depends on the context as well.

09:28 Sep 10, 2014 

In Italian, it is similar to English. Non-restrictive clauses (proposizioni relative esplicative) are set off by commas, even when short. For example: Piero, che è il figlio di Martino, è un bravo ragazzo. Restrictive clauses (proposizioni relative restrittive), on the other hand, don't take a comma. You can read a brief summary in Treccani: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/proposizioni-relative_(L...

As for the sentence in questions, when I read it, it doesn't sound too long to me. Perhaps, because I am used to reading geological articles, which, at times, have sentences that are much longer :-)

08:37 Sep 10, 2014 

As far as I know, Dutch doesn't make a difference between restrictive and non-restrictive clauses, with a relative clause, they always use a comma ("als niemand ziek is, is dat dan goed", "ik heb gezien, dat hij laat naar huis kwam"), so for example before all linking words resembling "dat" (i.e. that, almost all major linking words), there must be a comma.

In my first 'native language', Hungarian, we also do not differentiate between the restr. and non-restr. clauses. Teachers always have to explain and practice with the students the distinctions very thoroughly and carefully. We follow British usage, without a doubt, I expect all colleagues/teachers and translators translating into English well aware of this.

I hope I've been of some help if this was important to you. Kindest regards from Peter

p.s.: I've just noticed that the way I've made the sentences above, they are also prone to being misunderstood a bit, as I've made three clauses twice and the middle ones, although they belong to the first part, could be interpreted belonging to the third as well ;) and not without a reason. In my mind, ambiguity is an integral part of a very large part of all language use.

20:46 Sep 9, 2014 

Well, since you ask, yes, in Spanish the relative clause is (or should be) preceded by a comma if it's non-restrictive, but not if it's restrictive. The RAE (Spanish Royal Academy) uses the terms explicativo and especificativo respectively. Here, in case anyone's interested, is the relevant paragraph from the RAE's Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (s.v. coma), abbreviated to make it fit here:

"1.1.2. [...] Oraciones adjetivas explicativas: La casa, que está al borde del mar, es muy luminosa (se explica que la casa de la que se habla está al borde del mar). Por el contrario, si [...] la oración adjetiva tienen función especificativa, no se escribe entre comas: La casa que está al borde del mar es muy luminosa (se especifica que, de entre todas las casas que hay en una zona determinada, se habla de la que está situada al borde del mar)."
http://lema.rae.es/dpd/?key=coma

20:10 Sep 9, 2014 

Peter, thank you. I'm also a bit pressed for time right now (still a zillion things to do) but since you live in the Netherlands, maybe you could give your input to what I'll say below.

@Charles and Maria:
The question of "Does it really matter?" is probably a question of which language you're going to translate into. I just compared four languages and I'd appreciate your input here:

German: Relative clauses always take commas - that's why you see a lot of Germans making the mistake of putting commas everywhere.
English: Commas for non-restrictive clauses, no commas for restrictive ones.
Spanish: The same as in English (correct, Charles?)
Italian: Kind of like in English. Maybe you could add something here, Maria. Apparently, people prefer the commas for non-restrictive but only when the relative clause is quite long (it's not one of my primary languages, though).

Thus, depending on the language into which you need to translate, you should decide whether you make it a restrictive or non-restrictive clause. The relative clause would be quite long, too, so I guess this means that Italians should set it off by comma(s) as well?

And what about Dutch? (@Peter)

Thank you!

11:32 Sep 9, 2014 

Try reading the sentence aloud several times: I'll always find myself running out of breath somewhere in the sentence or stopping/changing tone before "emphasizing".

The original is simply a stylistically bad run-off sentence.

11:26 Sep 9, 2014 

You must have thought of her because her lyrics are as cryptic as my explanations sometimes :)

To reiterate my points:

1) For what it's worth, I agree with your original rephrasing - no restrictive clause. Charles provided the explanation here.
2) As you pointed out, there couldn't be a comma because that would refer the clause back to the subject of the sentence (which makes no sense).
3) My statement had the sole purpose of explaining why the author must have tried to combine both statements. Another example: "She was annoyed by Mary wanting her clothes back so badly." I think the author thought of possessive structures when making the subtitles and, pressed for space and possibly trying to avoid a comma, he went with a participle.

I also said below: Adding luck to the emphasis makes no sense, so we agree here.

Thus, in my opinion, the author should have either chosen your non-restrictive clause or rephrased the entire sentence (as I did with "calls in question" below).

My main point: When you first say "add luck" (like in a recipe) but the subsequent clause describes the story in terms of emphasis (instead of, say, luck as opposed to ability only), something is very wrong.

10:39 Sep 9, 2014 

I can go on fully supporting your views and explanations, I would've liked to write something to the effect of what you have been talking about earlier myself, had I had the time.

08:01 Sep 9, 2014 

I must have music on my mind.

08:00 Sep 9, 2014 

Ok, Bjorn. Guilty as charged.

As for the example you give. In this case, emphasizing would not be referring to either noun but rather to the sentence as a whole. Again, here I would rely on logic to say that it is not likely to have been the authors intention. Since the action of adding a dose of luck cannot emphasize the importance of tool making. It's contradictory. Charles may be able to give a better explanation about the grammar of that. In my experience, non-restrictive clauses in more complex sentences do not always refer to an action but can be used to simply give non-restrictive information about one of the nouns. Again, I defer to Charles on the grammatical explanation of this.

20:32 Sep 8, 2014 

A really good point. The sentence could stand on its own:

"A radical new take on human evolution adds a large dose of luck to the usual story."

In fact, I think something is conspiciously wrong with the sentence to begin with. This should have been a possessive, but then it wouldn't make sense anymore.

"A radical new take on human evolution adds a large dose of luck to the usual story's emphasis on the importance of our forebears' ability to make tools."

Of course, it doesn't make sense to add luck to the emphasis. But it reminded me of another discussion:

Her painting her house pink upset the neighbors -> The neighbors were upset by what she did. Here, the clause also describes what the "usual story" produces as a result.

In my humble opinion, the sentence should have read:
"A radical new take on human evolution calls in question the usual story's emphasis on how important it was for our forebears to make tools."

Someone tried to forcefully combine two statements that aren't directly linked. The only way to get around it: put "usual" in parentheses.

A radical new take on human evolution adds a large dose of luck to the (usual) story emphasizing...

19:13 Sep 8, 2014 

If Gallagy says "which" doesn't need a comma, something that points me to a restrictive clause, and you say to Gallagy that "which" always needs a comma in AmE, then he may assume AmE speakers are indifferent about comma usage - when, in fact, they are not.

On a side note: I think B D Finch was referring to the use of "which" in a non-restrictive clause, where it can refer to either the preceding noun or an entire clause, as in

"She walked all the way up to the castle, which is pretty good for a woman of her age."

The "which" doesn't refer to the castle here, obviously.

18:19 Sep 8, 2014 

As far as I'm concerned (as I've already said), the implicit relative clause in "emphasizing the importance of our forebears' ability to make tools" is definitely intended as a non-restrictive relative. I don't think it's a matter of opinion. It's surely inconceivable that the writer meant the usual story that emphasizes this as opposed to other usual stories that don't, which is what it would mean if it were restrictive. "That" instead of "which" would be wrong here, in my view, both in American and British English, and "which" without a comma in British English would also be wrong (wrong because it would say what I'm sure the writer doesn't mean).

Yes, it does matter, insofar as anything we discuss here matters.

18:14 Sep 8, 2014 

I love the CMS, not only for its clarity and good sense, but also for its dry humour. Since many British speakers are prone to be snooty about American usage (and this has been going on since the nineteenth century, often on the basis of ignorance), I relish the delicate putdown in "more or less okay (and popular among writers of British English)". I presume they mean it's more or less okay for Americans to imitate this degenerate British habit if they must, but don't go adding a comma. But I agree with you, Björn, that Americans rarely do.

(I have edited the following bit, which was garbled.)

That aside, it's quite true that British English readily accepts "which", as well as "that", to introduce a restrictive relative clause, but without a comma. The comma is required with a non-restrictive clause, always introduced by "which". So British English uses "which" either with or without a comma, depending on whether the following clause is non-restrictive or restrictive. Because Americans, as a rule, only use "which" to introduce non-restrictive clauses, they have the idea (and Microsoft Word's grammar checker certainly has the idea) that "which" must be preceded by a comma.

18:12 Sep 8, 2014 

Yes, I used to comma to indicate a non-restrictive clause and perhaps Gallagy thinks it should be written as a restrictive clause. Does it really matter?

18:05 Sep 8, 2014 

To quote the two standard AmE dictionaries:

"used as a function word to introduce a nonrestrictive relative clause and [...]"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/which

The American Heritage Dictionary adds a note of caution:
"(US usage) Some authorities insist, prescriptively, that relative which should be used only in non-restrictive contexts. For restrictive contexts (e.g., The song that made the charts in 2004 is better than the later ones), they prefer that. Actual usage does not support this 'rule'. Fowler, who proposed the rule, himself acknowledged that it was 'not the practice of most or of the best writers'. Even E.B. White, a notorious 'which-hunter', wrote this: 'the premature expiration of a pig is, I soon discovered, a departure which the community marks solemnly on its calendar.' In modern UK usage, The song which made the charts in 2004 is better than the later ones is generally accepted without question."
http://www.yourdictionary.com/which#americanheritage

The second example, however, also shows that introducing a restrictive clause by using "which" does not justify a comma.

17:44 Sep 8, 2014 

I cannot agree with Maria's response to Gallagy:

"Our divergent view on the use of the comma stems from the fact that I am an AmEng speaker. In AmEng, the use of which without a comma to precede it is frowned upon."

This statement runs a high risk of being misinterpreted by BrE speakers.

The question is not whether "which" takes a comma, but whether the clause is restrictive or non-restrictive. Typically, Americans use "which" for a non-restrictive clause, which also requires a comma, and "that" for a restrictive clause (which doesn't require a comma).

Chicago Manual of Style:
"Some people use “which” restrictively, which is more or less okay (and popular among writers of British English) as long as no commas are involved"
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Wh...

APA Style Guide:
"Consistent use of that for restrictive clauses and which for nonrestrictive clauses will help make your writing clear and precise."
http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/01/that-versus-which....

I, too, have almost never come across an American using "which" for a restrictive clause.

08:46 Sep 4, 2014 

What I now found a bit strange is that, from the discussion, it transpires the ambiguity is unambiguous after we expertly find out that the participle should refer to the object, as we would suspect with some background knowledge, not before. However, first everybody, even Charles gave their votes to the unambiguous answer, supposing that the comma was intended with a normal clause. Yes, it was, but the Q was if the original was ambiguous or not. And we seem to agree that it was. So ... where are the votes actually :) ?

08:44 Sep 4, 2014 

let me join up with Charles and what Maria earlier said: the use of a comma would rather make the phrase refer to the first noun, but would be strange before a participle clause as it is normally restrictive. As I've said earlier, a comma with a participle clause would be normal if one put the clause after the subject, incorporating it into the sentence, which would also be just as non-restrictive as this present use was intended to be, probably referring to the object. Further, if one thinks about it, a participle clause is a shortening of action, and it is usually the subject that acts, upon the object (except in passive sentences). If I'd seen a comma in the original sentence, I'd have though it was intended to mean 'A radical new take ... , by emphasizing ...'

cont.

08:13 Sep 4, 2014 

That is very interesting information :-) Thank you. I have not kept up on modern evolutionary theory. It is definitely not something you would expect one to know a lot about.
I was only referring to the "old story", which is the one that is taught in high school. All the modern developments in the theory aside, what I was trying to say is the following. Because the "old story" emphasized the importance of tool use (as we all know), any new take can only be adding to this or putting forward a completely new theory. Now, in the sentence in question, if "emphasizing" was referring to "the new take", it would imply that the "usual story" does NOT emphasize tool making, which we know is not true. It is this, above all else that clears any doubts in my mind. The absence of a comma (regardless of whether there should be one or not) only confirms this. I cannot rely on grammar alone in understanding a sentence because, as stated below, grammatical errors (mainly due to carelessness) are way too common.

00:43 Sep 4, 2014 

In fact, the "current story" - named "gene-culture coevolution" - is itself a relatively recent development, and was initially favoured by evolutionary psycologists and hotly opposed by many fossil-oriented paleoanthropologists.
Now there is a consensus on its main tenets; mostly as a sort of backgroud for new work and ideas. The "new take" doesn't in the least de-emphasize the importance of tool making; it simply factor in other aspects and looks at old ideas in new ways. In the words of the author: [...] "we have to look away from processes occurring within individual lineages to explain the rapid change among Ice Age hominins. Yet the same elements implicated in the gene-culture coevolution story—environmental pressures and material culture—may still have been in play. They simply operated rather differently from how the traditional portrayal suggests."
This is what I tried to say in the last sentence of my question: the difference between "new take" and "old story" is not primarily about tool making.
Possibly, I should have framed my question differently: Never mind the content (I can deal with it myself), just give me your opinion on the sentence itself!

00:06 Sep 4, 2014 

No offense taken, and I more than agree that translators should be familiar with the topics they work on. But here is the problem. It may be true that "basic, high school knowledge" would resolve the question - unless a very good and dedicated theacher had conveyed to a very interested pupil a nuanced understanding of modern ideas on evolution, in which case said pupil might have realized that there is a very wide gulf between tool making and gene pools, and some very specific ideas are needed if this gulf is to be bridged.
A semi-professional understanding of the topic - gathered, say, through a Laurea (con lode) in Scienze Biologiche; a few years of laboratory research; several decades of following the literature on molecular biology, genetics, population genetics, theory of evolution, history of science and more - and of journalism and translation in these and other scientific fields; and translation of a few tens of articles, stories, interviews etc. on recent ominin and human evolution for SA in the last six or seven years - I call it semi professional, because it's largelly based on secondary literature - will however re-open the question. (to be continued)

23:17 Sep 3, 2014 

Thank you for saying, so much better than me, exactly why I find the sentence somewhat unsatisfactory. I first read "emphasizing" as related to "new take", automatically adding a comma in my mind; then realized that the omission could be voluntary - and, on re-reading, probably was. So I wished to know if the doubt could possibly arise also in the mind of at least some native speaker.
Then, the usual caveats apply: native speakers do not always agree, and native English speakers are a particularly dverse crowd (and the readership of the magazine, after all, is not limited to native English speakers)...

18:29 Sep 3, 2014 

Your absolutely right, but unfortunately sloppy writing (and speaking for that matter) is a very common occurrence.

15:00 Sep 3, 2014 

Yes, with a comma after "story" I think most people would understand that the new take emphasizes tool use. And yet it would still not be unambiguous, since "[...] the usual story, emphasizing tool use" could mean "the usual story, which emphasizes tool use".

As I've already said, I think it would have been better if the writer had not used a participle at all and had written it in a way that makes the sense immediately obvious even to the uninitiated. This could easily have been done and should have been done. It's sloppily written.

12:33 Sep 3, 2014 

"..story, emphasizing..." or "...story by emphasizing..." would both make the last clause refer to the first noun in my mind however..
Yes, commas are often misused. Yes, grammatical errors are rampant in scientific writing. This is why one should be familiar with the topic they are translating and not rely solely on their knowledge of English grammar. In this case, basic, high school level knowledge of the topic resolves any questions of ambiguity (or lack thereof) in the structure of the sentence (senza offesa Alfredo).

11:34 Sep 3, 2014 

Alfredo did invite non-native speakers of English, so here are my two cents. The very fact that we’re having this discussion supports the ambiguity camp. It would be risky to determine the intended meaning of the phrase based solely on the absence (or presence) of a comma, since we all know, as Charles said, that commas are frequently misused, even in published academic works. Regardless of whether the phrase is ambiguous, it would be hard to argue against the fact that it could have been written better. If you have to read any phrase a couple of times to glean the meaning, even if you’re sure that you’re interpreting it correctly, then the phrase could be improved. That’s my humble opinion as a non-native speaker of English.

09:59 Sep 3, 2014 

You would often say, for example, "the man driving the car was injured", meaning "the man who was driving the car was injured": that man as opposed to some other man, a restrictive relative. You wouldn't say "My father driving the car was injured"; you would say "My father, who was driving the car, was injured" (with commas): a non-restrictive relative.

This is a non-restrictive relative. The writer means "the usual story, which emphasizes [...]", and that is what he/she should have written. And it ought to have a comma. He/she doesn't mean the usual story that emphasizes tool use as opposed to other usual stories that don't.

That, I think, is why it jars for me, and is a factor that leads an attentive reader to wonder whether this participle does stand for a relative and whether it might have a different function.

09:52 Sep 3, 2014 

Well I do, and I regard myself as a "true" native speaker. It's all very well to say that if the other meaning were intended a comma would have been included, but in practice commas are not always included where they ought to be; in fact they're quite commonly omitted.

What I'm saying is not that the two hypothetical readings are equally likely. As it stands, I think the natural reading (even if you know nothing about anthropology) is to take "emphasizing" as referring to "usual story". But I disagree that all true native speakers would be totally confident that it wasn't intended to refer to "new take". They might wonder whether they were supposed to read it as if there were a comma after "story".

The lack of a comma leads you, in principle, to relate "emphasizing" to the adjacent noun and read it as an implicit relative. But "the usual story emphasizing the importance [...]" is, in my view, an improper, or at least unnatural, use of the participle-for-relative construction, because it is non-restrictive, and participles usually replace restrictive relatives. When they replace non-restrictive relatives, they should be, and normally are, preceded by a comma.

09:19 Sep 3, 2014 

@ Charles,
I honestly don't see any problem here for (true) native speakers (and Alfredo did ask for "native" help)...

08:00 Sep 3, 2014 

To add a little substance to the rather poor explanation given in my answer. To me this sentence is unambiguous precisely because of the lack of comma before "emphasizing". Emphasizing is directly linked to the "the usual story", which to me is a clear sign that it is referring to story. If it was intended to refer to "the new take", a comma would be needed to supply a separation, to indicate that it is not referring to the noun directly preceding it.

07:23 Sep 3, 2014 

Thank you. I tried to explain this in my answer, but to no avail, it seemed.

07:14 Sep 3, 2014 

entirely.

21:06 Sep 2, 2014 

I disagree. I think it is ambiguous. I agree that what emphasises tool use is the usual story, not the new take, but it's quite possible to understand the latter, even without a comma: A adds B to C emphasising D could well mean that A emphasises D rather than that C emphasises D. With the aid of Sheri's quotation from the contents, and the knowledge that tool use actually is the usual story, we can arrive at what I believe is the right interpretation, but an uninformed reader taking this passage in isolation could well be misled and could certainly be forgiven for wondering what is doing the emphasising. Replacing the relative with a participle is very common practice, but in this case I think it's bad writing, because it doesn't make the meaning immediately clear, which could easily have been done, and leaves the reader wondering how to interpret it.

20:53 Sep 2, 2014 

No ambiguity at all in my opinion and absolutely no need for a comma either. ...the usual story emphasizing the importance =which emphasis/zes the importance... (as Maria says)

20:21 Sep 2, 2014 

At least, now it is clear what the editor intended to say. The sentence itself, however, still looks somewhat ambiguous to me, expecially to the chance, unitiated reader. This is why I wrote "purely linguistic terms" above. Of course I can "improve" the wording in Italian according to my understanding of the whole article, but before doing so I wished to be sure that the sentence *did* indeed need a bit of improving" .

19:28 Sep 2, 2014 

I happen to have the magazine in front of me. Take a look at the table of contents (page 1 of the print edition). Here's what's listed there for the story you are translating:

54 If I Had a Hammer
Tools were not enough to forge our species. A radical new theory holds that luck also played a big role. By Ian Tattersall

That might clear things up a bit.

18:58 Sep 2, 2014 

I agree with you, Alfredo. As there is no comma, the term "emphasizing" could refer to one or the other. If it is not possible to maintain the ambiguity in Italian, I should link it to "the usual story" as "a new take" doesn´t change the stress on the importance of tool making.
However I´m no native speaker.