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By 1860, the settlement of the American West along with timber shortages in the East converged with ever-widening impact on the pine forests of the Great Lakes states.

Here's what I think: In this sentence, the intersection of the settlement and timber shortages leads to the ever-widening impact on that forest. But literally, I would take it this way: The settlement together with the shortage converged with the increasing impact. However, it doesn't make sense this way, because it means that the settlement with the shortage is getting closer with the increasing impact.

How to understand the meaning of CONVERGED WITH in this sentence?

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    It's the same structure as "Traffic from the ball game and traffic from the funeral converged with a lot of noise."
    – Stuart F
    Commented Mar 1, 2022 at 14:40
  • @StuartF Thanks for the example. Very helpful for me.
    – Tim
    Commented Mar 1, 2022 at 14:59

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To my eye, there is a comma missing after the word converged: "By 1860, the settlement of the American West along with timber shortages in the East converged, with ever-widening impact on the pine forests of the Great Lakes states." That is to say the settlement and the shortages converged (combined or came together), pause, and that convergence / combination led to the (presumably detrimental) impact on the forests. In my interpretation, there is no "converged with", they should be separated.

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    It makes perfect sense to understand it this way. Thanks.
    – Tim
    Commented Mar 1, 2022 at 12:14
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    I suppose some would argue that the comma is not strictly necessary, but they're not seeing the Gricean maxim of clarity as an overarching requirement.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Mar 1, 2022 at 12:46
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    @EdwinAshworth Agreed; there's "grammatically necessary" and then there's "semantically necessary." I was ready to throw out the passage as flawed before seeing this explanation; it's a little bit of a garden-path sentence.
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Mar 1, 2022 at 14:29
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    I believe this is the intended reading: By 1860, the settlement of the American West along with timber shortages in the East converged ... on the pine forests of the Great Lakes states. So you need two commas, if any: By 1860, the settlement of the American West along with timber shortages in the East converged, with ever-widening impact, on the pine forests of the Great Lakes states.
    – Tinfoil Hat
    Commented Mar 2, 2022 at 15:33
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Looking at the text in context (from Down to Earth), the sentence appears to mean:

By 1860, the settlement of the American West along with timber shortages in the East converged (with ever-widening impact) on the pine forests of the Great Lakes states.

Or:

American West settlement and Eastern timber shortages converged on the Great Lakes pine forests.

So converge is used in its sense of:

to tend or move toward one point or one another : come together : meet
// converging paths
// Police cars converged on the accident scene.
Source: Merriam Webster — converge

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  • The version with "and" instead of "along with" is much superior. "Along with" names something that is non-essential to the meaning of the sentence, and here both events that converge are essential.
    – Ben Voigt
    Commented Mar 2, 2022 at 17:24
  • @BenVoigt: And is a little more clear, but I think it could go either way. Compare Police cars and firetrucks converged on the accident scene and Police cars along with firetrucks converged on the accident scene. Both convey the idea of two things arriving to meet with a third.
    – Tinfoil Hat
    Commented Mar 2, 2022 at 17:33
  • That works only because "Police cars converged on the accident scene." is correct. There are plural police cars, the presence of the fire trucks is non-essential to the convergence of one police car with (an)other police car(s). Compare to "One police car and six firetrucks converged" (correct) and "One police car along with six firetrucks converged" (avoid)
    – Ben Voigt
    Commented Mar 2, 2022 at 17:36
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    @BenVoigt: Ah, I think I see what you mean now. Here, for example, the subject verb agreement is correct but the semantics are wrong: A police car along with two firetrucks converges on the accident scene. = A police car converges on the accident scene. How does one car converge?
    – Tinfoil Hat
    Commented Mar 2, 2022 at 18:44
  • Yes that's exactly it. "converge" requires two or more co-equal actors to meet, it generally doesn't work with a singular subject along with some auxilliary/modifier phrase(s). The exception would be if you have two actors which meet but they are not equal because one is not moving, then you can have (singular subject in motion) converged with (stationary actor)
    – Ben Voigt
    Commented Mar 2, 2022 at 18:49
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I read it to mean "...merged together resulting in..." I also agree there is a missing comma to help clarify the two merging causes of pine forest impacts. Here is my re-written sentence to illustrate my point:

By 1860, the settlement of the American West, along with timber shortages in the East, merged together resulting in ever-widening impact on the pine forests of the Great Lakes states.

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  • Your rewrite is just as awkward and difficult to parse as the original. Replacing "along" with "together" or "combined" and dropping "converged" would be clearer. But it still loses the correct application of "converge" that Tinfoil Hat has noted -- the pine forests are the location of the convergence.
    – Ben Voigt
    Commented Mar 2, 2022 at 17:25

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