She tried to understand why, despite the fact that people want to be good, compassionate and good-natured, still, out of nowhere, appear irritability and hostility.
I could also add an Oxford comma but there already seem too many commas?
3
-
2If I were an English teacher, I couldn't knock off a mark for ungrammaticality, but I'd probably knock one off for confusing and strange style. I'd suggest a rewrite (possibly two sentences) rather than an attempt to get the punctuation spot-on.– Edwin AshworthCommented May 12, 2017 at 11:22
-
3As @EdwinAshworth pointed in the earlier comment. It will probably read better such as "She tried to understand why irritability and hostility appear in people when the fact is that they want to be compassionate and good-natured,"– Bhoomika AroraCommented May 12, 2017 at 12:44
-
@Bhoomika Arora Many marks (well, +1).– Edwin AshworthCommented May 12, 2017 at 12:53
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
Your sentence:
She tried to understand why, despite the fact that people want to be good, compassionate and good-natured, still, out of nowhere, appear irritability and hostility.
I would say that the sentence is quite confusing, due to the use of inversion.
"She tried to understand why" opens a new clause and can be omitted.
Now, we would have a sentence beginning with "despite":
Despite [the fact that people want to be good, compassionate and good-natured], [appear irritability and hostility].
(I have omitted "still" and "out of nowhere" as they are not important to the grammar.)
Now, one can see where the inversion is. In the second phrase, the subject appeared after the verb, with the (omitted) adverb phrases in the beginning.
Possible correction:
She tried to understand why, despite the fact that people want to be good, compassionate and good-natured, still, out of nowhere, irritability and hostility appear.
(This isn't German. The verb doesn't have to be in the second place.)