We start guessing the end of sentence before finishing it the order

According to Bergen, we start modelling words as we start reading them. We don’t wait until we get to the end of the sentence. This means the order in which writers place their words matters. This is perhaps why transitive construction - Jane gave a Kitten to her Dad - is more effective than the ditransitive - Jane gave her Dad a kitten. Picturing Jane, then the Kitten, then her Dad mimics the real-world action that we, as readers, should be modelling. It means we’re mentally experiencing the scene in the correct sequence. Because writers are, in effect, generating neural movies in the minds of their readers, they should privilege word order that’s filmic, imagining how their reader’s neural camera will alight upon each component of a sentence.

For the same reason, active sentence construction - Jane kissed her Dad - is more effective than passive - Dad was kissed by Jane. Witnessing this in real life, Jane’s initial movement would draw our attention and then we’d watch the kiss play out. We wouldn’t be dumbly staring at Dad, waiting for something to happen.

Jane gave a kitten to her dad. By the time “dad” arrives, the mind has already met Jane, followed the kitten and completed the handover. The sentence behaves like the event. Nothing needs reversing halfway through. Writing advice often treats word order as etiquette. It is closer to logistics. Information arrives one parcel at a time, and the reader has to put each parcel somewhere before the next one lands.

“Open settings, choose billing, then add the card” gives an action in usable order. An incident update can name the service, state the failure and show the customer consequence. A landing page can begin with the recognised nuisance, then introduce the mechanism that removes it. Each phrase gives the next one somewhere to sit. Passive construction is occasionally exactly right. “Customer data was exposed” should foreground the harmed party, especially before the actor is known. The problem begins when passivity becomes witness protection for responsibility: “mistakes were made”, presumably by a light breeze.

By the time a reader reaches an unexplained “it”, three qualifications may still be waiting for a verb and the ending may force the entire picture to be demolished and rebuilt. In a strong sequence, actor, object and consequence arrive in the order they are needed. The sentence assembles itself; the reader never sees the construction crew.