Rewriting History

I picked a sentence for Z's dictation today. It was from the ________(publisher shall remain nameless) Introduction to Archaeology. After reading and dictating the sentence I decided the sentence was really wonky. *Wonky is a technical term for out of sorts. For an additional exercise, we rewrote the sentence. Again, a rabbit trail turned into a wonderful exercise. Why is it that the things I don't plan turn out better than the things I do plan? Hum..... pondering... There's a whole other post in that issue.

Anyway, the original sentence from the book is:

Damp, soggy, places, such as bogs and marshes,
and the mud at the bottom of lake,
can be very good for preserving organic remains.

Not horrid, but confusing. If you pull the subject and verb and predicate nominative from this you get:

Places| can be\good

Kind of vague and uninspiring. So Z and I rewrote the sentence. Here's the rewrite:

Bogs, marshes, and mud at the bottom of lakes
preserve organic remains well because they are damp and soggy.

We now have a much stronger(compound) subject|verb| direct object.

Bogs, marshes, mud| preserve| remains

So we rewrote a bit of history today. At least we made it more pleasing to read. This may be a week of rabbit trails. I can't wait to see where else they may take us.