Spin

I was reading Style: Ten lessons in clarity and grace¹ this morning over breakfast and found the following gem. It’s an illustration of how choosing the grammatical subjects of your sentences carefully can let you manipulate your message, while apparently conveying the same information.

“Tom got in my way, we bumped, my glass dropped, and the milk spilled.” Which is to say, “When I bumped into Tom I dropped my glass and spilled the milk.”²

Notes:

1. Despite the link, it’s the third edition I have, from 1981. [↪]
2. I’ve messed with the punctuation and formatting. [↪]