Day 212: Create appositives from compound descriptive phrases to prevent misunderstanding.

Compound descriptive phrases are two or more descriptive phrases strung together. Consider this sentence.

“The company opened a store in the Las Vegas area called Gamblers’ Row.”

The two descriptive phrases are “in the Las Vegas area” and “called Gamblers’ Row.” Here’s the problem. People tend to link descriptions to the closest noun in the sentence. The reader could interpret this sentence to mean that Las Vegas has an area called Gamblers’ Row and that the company will open the store there. “Called Gamblers’ Row” seems to describe “Las Vegas area.”

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We could switch the order of the phrases to get the name close to the word “store.” This gives us the following:

“The company opened a store called Gamblers’ Row in Las Vegas.”

The reader may ask, “What is the store called in other places?” This sentence is still confusing.

Here’s how we fix this confusion. We make the first descriptive phrase an appositive. By making it an appositive, set off with commas, the reader is informed that “Gamblers’ Row” has the same meaning as “store” and that the base sentence is “The company opened a new store in Las Vegas.” This gives us this clear, nonconfusing, revision:

“The company opened a store, Gamblers’ Row, in Las Vegas.”