Read the excerpt from the odyssey. neither reply nor pity came from him, but in one stride he clutched at my companions and caught two in his hands like squirming puppies to beat their brains out, spattering the floor. then he dismembered them and made his meal, gaping and crunching like a mountain lion— everything: innards, flesh, and marrow bones. what can be inferred about the cyclops? he has gone hungry for a very long time. he is savage and brutal like a wild animal. he is terrified of odysseus and his men. he is very similar to his father, poseidon.

ah, shun the horrid gulf! by scylla fly.

sentences vary by structure as well as by function. there are compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.

simple sentence

i like to read.

a simple sentence has one independent clause.

compound sentence

i like to read, and i also like to write.

a compound sentence includes more than one independent clause, connected by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, nor, or, so, or yet).

complex sentence

i prefer to read books that are bestsellers.

a complex sentence includes one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. (a dependent clause is one that cannot stand alone.) types of dependent clauses include relative clauses (i kicked the boy who pinched me), adverb clauses (i am going home now because i have a curfew), and noun clauses (i don't know what to do next).

compound-complex sentence

although i prefer to read current bestsellers, i do like to read old agatha christie mysteries, and i also like some 20th-century science fiction.

compound-complex sentences take a bunch of clauses (multiple independent clauses, and one or more dependent clauses) and toss them together like a salad. although these sentences take practice to write in a grammatically correct fashion, they can hold a tremendous amount of meaning, and are common in academic writing.