Ode to the sentence... Ode to the long sentence...

I am trying to develop some general ideas about “Aramis was an exciting discourse” and “Aramis is one long sentence.” Most, “Aramis is one long sentence” because it seems that no matter what we are working on, new technological development, research paper, lesson plans, etc, we are asked to summarize it in a sentence (article abstracts, program book descriptions, objective for the lesson plan, research question). I have never thought of the idea of one (long) sentence seeming so key to the field of rhet/comp, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that the ability to be concise (in one sentence) or a little more elaborate (one long sentence) is an important component.

[I am writing this in word, and am unable to get online at the moment so I apologize for the lack of page numbers, as my physical book has not come in yet.]

I am thinking about the part of the book where Aramis is a sentence, and each new sentence adds something, until Aramis is one long sentence. It seemed to me that each new addition to the sentence, each new added length, came from some actor – an interview that gave them more information about the history of Aramis, new reports that were filed away, new meeting minutes, each new sentence had an addition from a new actor. The inventor did not sit down and write a long sentence and poof Aramis was a long sentence, but it seemed that as the engineers worked on the project, as those in politics had input, Aramis continue to grown in its sentence length. I feel like this idea should be able to go a step further, outside of the Aramis context and work with other technologies, but I am missing that connection step. I see how language and discourse works to create technologies (concepts of technology, patents seem all language and discourse based, grant paper work, protocol, ect) there is no argument that language/discourse is important, and not only for those working directly on the project, but for those within society, the public authorities, those working on other projects. At one point in the book there was a discussion about it not being a pertain question about technology, not about society, but about sociotechnological compromise – and compromise can’t exist without discourse. Each actor would have their own “Aramis is…” sentence, and how would they, as a group, reconcile those sentences into one long “Aramis is sentence?” I think I may do some prelim- research on the sentence as our sound bites for research, for description, for technology. I am interested to see if there is more out there. There has to be more to the sentence; there just has to be!