If you wish to secure conciseness of expression, be especially careful to avoid joining or completing thoughts by these expressions: and, so, why, that is why, this is the reason, and everything.
In this chapter we shall consider some of the larger faults that should be avoided in sentences.
Exercise 197—Unity of the Sentence
Give the definition of a sentence.
How many thoughts may one sentence express?
What is likely to happen when two thoughts are joined by and? What, then, is the danger in using the compound sentence?
The compound sentence is good to use to express certain ideas, especially contrast; as,
It is not work that kills men; it is worry.
It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction [but it is the friction].
The sentences which most clearly and easily give us one thought are the simple and the complex sentences.