What is the grammatical purpose of the apostrophe after 'person' I wonder? Without it, I should have read the word as a simple plural, but with it I am confused. Perhaps there is an abstruse (though probably very correct) way in which Member Grew is prepared to argue that "persons'" here functions somehow as a genitive...

Baz

It all petered out long long ago in a spiraling vortex of tortured prose.

Petered Out Eh ? I agree Syd and perhaps Lebrecht and Co are responsible ?

All the more surprising, therefore, that the member appears to be less concerned with the rigours of punctuation: surely the clause 'an educated person' deserves separation by parenthesis or, at the very least, commas?

There is nothing remotely "superior" about your first quoted sentence Dr Grew. It is surely one of the most perverse and clumsy (indeed negligent!) constructions I have ever noted.

a) Since it is (you claim) the rigour of your grammar that is unremitting, you should have used the adverb "unremittingly" (yielding the phrase "unremittingly rigorous accuracy), or at least you should have placed a comma after "unremitting" so as to show that it was an adjective (of equal weight to "rigorous") of "grammar". By not having done so you have deliberately caused confusion through poor punctuation and/or syntax;

b) since members of this MB are not members "of necessity" (but only by personal choice), it is obvious that a comma must be placed both before and after the words "of necessity", so as to avoid the false implication that their membership is compulsory;

c) your use of "in fact" has no place within the verb "bear out". Furthermore, since anything at all perceived within what you write is not fact but merely observation, the use of the noun "fact" is mere assertion and over-emphasis. In any event, the words "in fact" need to be surrounded by commas (or alternatively parentheses) to avoid setting "false trails" for your readers;

d) having already confused us by the initial phrase "unremitting rigorous accuracy", you have ended by informing us of a supposed "larger rigorous accuracy". I am therefore confused as to the sense in which your supposed accuracy is either "unremitting" or "larger" (than what?).

By replacing all the mandatory punctuation you have deliberately omitted (so as even further to confuse your readers), your truly grotesque sentence should read as follows:

"The unremitting, rigorous accuracy of our grammar must, it will by now be sufficiently evident to many Members, of necessity, bear, in fact, out the larger, rigorous accuracy and truth of everything we write."

I don't somehow feel you would earn many literary awards for that!

Baz

Sorry - but I did correct this afterwards (as you will note)!

I have to say, despite all the learned objections above, I find this sentence, at this moment, on this day, an insanely fine one. (I personally would think 'unremitting' is relating to 'accuracy' not 'rigorous', thus not needing the adverb 'unremittingly'.)

 Anyway, surrounded as I am by more grammatically erudite minds, I will restrict myself to an observation of some irony, that to some degree the sentence has many characteristics I would happily find in a well and intelligently formed jazz improvisation, sustaining, as it does, its momentum in an unexpected fashion and, for this, having an impact (and hence clarity) which is heightened by having stepped out of the box of orthodox and easily anticipated resolution.