The Lost Art Of Writing

[Mickey]

I apply them, but not rigorously. Flabby prose is death, regardless of genre, so I write loose (capture the idea), revise terse (refine the thought), then adjust to taste and genre. My punctuation, I'll concede, is idiosyncratic.

 

I think prose can be highly refined, without being terse.

 

 

You miss the point. Stripping the obviously unnecessary from the first draft (terse edit) highlights what is necessary, so that any elaboration allowed by the genre is done purposefully. This can't be reduced to a syllable count.

 

 

I've not checked the manuscript, but I suspect a great deal of distillation produced this:

 

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeablethan the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. Thereare circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not--somepeople of course never do,--the situation is in itself delightful. Thosethat I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offeredan admirable setting to an innocent pastime.

 

I find it self-indulgent. To my taste, its charm (and is has some) is insufficient to justify the excesses. If I were editor for this writer I would return the following for consideration.

 

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not--some people of course never do,--the situation is in itself delightful. Those (?) that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime.

 

The repetition of "circumstances" suggests a list, which never materializes. I would omit the first clause of the second sentence. (I'm not all that keen on "Under certain circumstance" either.) I would consider replacing "than the hour" in the first sentence with "than those." In the second sentence, "the situation" is too weak a payoff for the set up. This is a case where either greater specificity or elaboration might help. (Consider replacing "the situation," perhaps with something like "the ritual is in itself delightful" or "the simple fact of it is delightful.") To what does "those" in the third sentence refer. It is not clear.

 

Basta cosi'. I think I know what the author wants to do, but this paragraph stumbles rather than marches. It certainly doesn't sing to me. In criticizing it, I've probably plowed under some literary icon, but I call 'em like I see 'em. This paragraph is not (yet) my cup of tea. (Way too much bergamot.)

 

 

[DAYoung]

You miss the point. Stripping the obviously unnecessary from the first draft (terse edit) highlights what is necessary, so that any elaboration allowed by the genre is done purposefully. This can't be reduced to a syllable count.

 

Yes, I agree with your description of editing, i.e. taking out what's unnecessary. But I wouldn't say this makes it 'terse'. To me, 'terse' is one mood or style an author might cultivate, rather than a feature of all editing. When Joyce was writing parts of Ulysses, he was being very deliberate with his words. But the prose, in the end, wasn't necessarily terse.

 

Put another way, the word 'terse' implies a syllable count. It is abrupt, concise writing.

 

But if, by 'terse edit', you simply mean 'stripping the obviously unnecessary', I'm happy to agree. And it might well be that I'm missing some of the nuance of the word 'terse'. If so, I'll consider myself, yet again, educated in conversation.

[DAYoung]

And I listen again and again to CEOs and politicians saying absolutely nothing at all for minutes on end, and much of their audiences thinking that they have said something - language weakened to the point that nothing is committed to by the speech, because the words are so 'flexible' - because their meanings are blurred.

 

Yes, this is the Orwellian criticism. And I'm certainly sympathetic to it.

[DAYoung]

Basta cosi'. I think I know what the author wants to do, but this paragraph stumbles rather than marches. It certainly doesn't sing to me. In criticizing it, I've probably plowed under some literary icon, but I call 'em like I see 'em. This paragraph is not (yet) my cup of tea. (Way too much bergamot.)

 

By the way, the novel's Henry James, Portrait of a Lady. You wouldn't be the first to plough him under! (I like your 'bergamot' line.)

 

Incidentally, James had a habit of writing 'Basta!' in his letters, after he'd penned a long passage. It's a funny coincidence to see your 'basta cosi' there.

Edited July 24, 2011 by DAYoung

[Mickey]

Basta cosi'. I think I know what the author wants to do, but this paragraph stumbles rather than marches. It certainly doesn't sing to me. In criticizing it, I've probably plowed under some literary icon, but I call 'em like I see 'em. This paragraph is not (yet) my cup of tea. (Way too much bergamot.)

 

By the way, the novel's Henry James, Portrait of a Lady. You wouldn't be the first to plough him under! (I like your 'bergamot' line.)

 

Incidentally, James had a habit of writing 'Basta!' in his letters, after he'd penned a long passage. It's a funny coincidence to see your 'basta cosi' there.

 

Interesting. I'm a burnt out old opera singer. I wonder what his excuse was.

 

Answering your other query, my use of terse comes from a professor already ancient when I took his class 40 years ago. (He first brought to my attention the destruction of language wrought by mass media, the news "readers," particularly. His banner cry was the use of awful where unpleasant or inferior would be more accurate.) By terse, he meant spare, stripped of all that was unnecessary. Though his manner was frequently abrupt, he didn't believe good prose need be.

 

I borrowed the bergamot business from the protagonist in a novel I'm working on. (Strunk and White, note the dangling participle.) He didn't care much for the tea, but drank out of fondness for the long dead Earl.

[DAYoung]

Interesting. I'm a burnt out old opera singer. I wonder what his excuse was.

 

 

He spent many years in Italy. His impressions were collected in a travel book entitled Italian Hours.

 

Answering your other query, my use of terse comes from a professor already ancient when I took his class 40 years ago. (He first brought to my attention the destruction of language wrought by mass media, the news "readers," particularly. His banner cry was the use of awful where unpleasant or inferior would be more accurate.) By terse, he meant spare, stripped of all that was unnecessary. Though his manner was frequently abrupt, he didn't believe good prose need be.

 

This strikes me as an idiosyncratic use of the word ''terse'. But, as I suggested, I might be using the word clumsily.

 

 

[KateGladstone]

Chevalier — "You had better" has been around for a few centuries; see abundant instances here: http://www.google.com/search?q=bartleby.com+%22you+had+better%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safariThe phrase gradually outcompeted "you would better" and is now being outcompeted by "you better" in that vast free market that is the English language.

[KateGladstone]

I find that the split infinitive is often more precise and less likely to interrupt the thought being exposed. "he failed to completely learn cursive" is usefully different from "He completely failed to learn cursive," and is not initially misleading (as would be "He failed to learn cursive completely": which could support either meaning, but appears — until the very last word — to support an unintended meaning.)

[KateGladstone]

Teaching a student of English that "transpire" differs from "happen" is useless when nobody but the teacher uses the two words thus. In fact, it is worse than useless, if the student's eventual employer uses the two words as synonyms and expects his new employee to understand him as others do.

[KateGladstone]

You may be disappointed in me; I'm disappointed that the situation I describe is a fact.I assume that you wish I had said: "Yes, indeed — teach the student an English that he will never hear save from the mouth of his teacher: an English that others will perforce misunderstand."I do not at all recommend keeping a student ignorant of the fact that native speakers of English once usually meant different things by the words "transpire" and "happen." Likewise, I don't recommend keeping students ignorant of the fact that native speakers of English increasingly mean the same thing by the words "transpire" and "happen." What led you to the wrong assumption that my will to avoid imposing the latter ignorance required me to impose the former ignorance? Why, for that matter, do you — it seems to me — consider it so important to impose the former ignorance?It seems to me, Beak, that you've decided that the English you learned in your formative years is the only English, now and forever — as if an automobile mechanic or salesman or driving-instructor had decided long ago that the only type of car in existence is the one that he himself learned to drive on (be it the Edsel or the Maxwell or the Model T), that no other makes or models are cars at all, and that their existence ought nowise to be countenanced or admitted.

[KateGladstone]

Beak's grumblings increasingly call to mind this poem, whose author I hav forgotten (if ever I knew it) —"GOING TO THE DOGS My granddad, viewing earth's worn cogs, Said things were going to the dogs;His granddad in his house of logs, Said things were going to the dogs;His granddad in the Flemish bogs. Said things were going to the dogs;His granddad in his old skin togs, Said things were going to the dogs;There's one thing that I have to state – The dogs have had a good long wait."

[KateGladstone]

To those who claim that they oppose all extension of a word to cover more than one meaning — e.g., "anticipate" used to cover also "expect" — why don't you likewise oppose and resent the fact that a hisyorically plural term ("you") was extended to cover the singular? Isn't that, too — the loss of a second-person singular — a serious loss of meaning? If you indeed find it intolerable that "anticipate" is swallowing "expect," or that any word has likewise lost some earlier distinction of meaning ...then why on Earth find it tolerable — as Ii think you you do — that "you" swallowed "thou"? To you who imagine that you unalterably oppose all changes that remove shades of meaning -- start "thou"-ing, and see how far it gets thee.

[KateGladstone]

Re: "It's just not working ... !" — precisely what is this "it" that you want so very much to work?

[DAYoung]

.....the Orwellian criticism. ..........

And we see even earlier references quoted above. Nothing is new, least of all me! I have a mini-problem with the term though; it gives a 'retro' and fictional air to the topic (do you agree?) and somehow labels it in a way that makes it appear as though already dealt with, and 'old hat', when it is as current a problem as ever.

 

I'll bet everyone who thinks this way sees their own time and situation as 'the end of civilization as we know it', when the process has been eternal, I would guess, but that does not overturn the idea that it is still important, does it?

 

No, the Orwell reference isn't fictional (i.e. unreal, if this is what you meant) or 'retro'. He cared deeply for the English language, and gave a clear and rigorous defence of it. 1984 is a warning on the dilution of language. His essays contain primers on how to write well.

 

I might have mentioned Sophists in Plato's dialogues, or Petronius' complaints about 'stale' language. But 'Orwell' is a modern reference, which applies directly to our language.

 

His name, in this, suggests an ongoing current in intellectual life, and a specific example of English affirmed (in its richness and nuance).

Edited July 25, 2011 by DAYoung

[DAYoung]

To those who claim that they oppose all extension of a word to cover more than one meaning — e.g., "anticipate" used to cover also "expect" — why don't you likewise oppose and resent the fact that a hisyorically plural term ("you") was extended to cover the singular? Isn't that, too — the loss of a second-person singular — a serious loss of meaning? If you indeed find it intolerable that "anticipate" is swallowing "expect," or that any word has likewise lost some earlier distinction of meaning ...then why on Earth find it tolerable — as Ii think you you do — that "you" swallowed "thou"? To you who imagine that you unalterably oppose all changes that remove shades of meaning -- start "thou"-ing, and see how far it gets thee.

 

No doubt there were folks lamenting the loss of these cases. (I hope 'case' is the right word.) And I think English has lost something in this. I don't know how much it's lost - perhaps not anything earth-shattering. Certainly we've missed a nuance still available in other languages.

 

But those of us coming after can't expect to magically reinvent their popular usage - hence, 'thou-ing' and 'thee-ing' are unlikely to help.

 

Having said this, it is nice that these words pop up in literature, e.g. the New Testament, translations of Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, and elsewhere. It's a reminder, if nothing else.

[KateGladstone]

/1/ "Case" is indeed the wrong word for a distinction of number.

 

/2/ I never claimed that making "anticipate" and "expect" synonymous was good — I merely pointed out that it was a fact: that it had happened. As with any fact, circumstances will arise in which we ignore this fact at our peril.

 

Someone who has been taught, and who actually believes, that "anticipate" never refers to the same thing as "expect" will be at a disadvantage when his wife says: "I anticipate that you'll come home drunk again tonight at 3 A.M." — for his training, if he accepts it as valid, must lead him to conclude that she looks forward to the prospect.

 

Analogy:

A staunch supporter of the British monarchy may say — may, perhaps, actually believe - —that the southern portion of North America should never have become, and therefore properly is not and can never be, any such thing as the "United States." He is entitled to his own opinion — but he is not entitled to his own facts. If he wishes to teach history or geography, to to speaker write upon current events, he will be at a disadvantage — and he will place his readers and listeners at a disadvantage, if he pretends that some fact he dislikes (some change in the boundaries of nations, or in the boundaries between the use of one word and another) has never occurred. To accept— even to teach about — the existence of the United States (or the existence of a re-defined "anticipate") does not require calling it "good" — and I did not call "good" the re-definition of "anticipate."

[KateGladstone]

Beak's objection to "anticipate" meaning "expect" — that this cannot be good — could with equal force oppose the word's currently standard meaning of "look forward to": because in the seventeenth century "anticipate" had meant "prevent." Someone living then, and defending this older meaning of the word, could well have asked: "In what sens is it a good thing that the proper meaning of 'anticipate' is lost, and the word comes to mean nothing more than 'look forward to'?"

[DAYoung]

/1/ "Case" is indeed the wrong word for a distinction of number.

 

You're right. It's a declension, not a case. All cases are declensions, but not all declensions are cases.

 

Forgetting my Greek...

Edited July 25, 2011 by DAYoung

[Moagy]

my use of terse comes from a professor already ancient when I took his class 40 years ago. (He first brought to my attention the destruction of language wrought by mass media, the news "readers," particularly.

 

I feel I must leap to the defence of myself and my fellow newsreaders here. I'm not a journalist, it's not my job to write the news, but only to read it in a manner which is appropriate for the type of news and the station on which it is being broadcast so that it is easy to understand.

 

Technically I should read whatever is put in front of me without question, but at the risk of sounding like an old fogey, I find that many of the younger journalists today who haven't had the more rigorous grounding in grammar (and sometimes spelling...) which I had, will make grammatical errors which I just don't want to have to read. At this point, I usually call the journalist explain what's wrong and ask them if they are alright with my changing it. I ask because it is their bulletin, their work, and I'm only their mouthpiece. 9 times out of 10 they agree.

 

So as you see Mickey, not all news readers are hell bent on destroying the language, some of us seek to preserve it!!

 

 

Someone who has been taught, and who actually believes, that "anticipate" never refers to the same thing as "expect" will be at a disadvantage when his wife says: "I anticipate that you'll come home drunk again tonight at 3 A.M." — for his training, if he accepts it as valid, must lead him to conclude that she looks forward to the prospect.

 

Kate:

 

I confess, your attitude perplexes me. You seem to be advocating here, and in quite a few other of your posts, that it is somehow better to be ignorant; that having a more wide ranging or deeper degree of knowledge than others is a disadvantage and should be quoshed. The husband is not at a disadvantage, the wife is, because through her ignorance she set up an expectation that was false.

 

If the above scenario were actually to happen and he had made the conclusion you suggest, then surely his next step is to educate his wife about the difference between anticipate and expect so that she doesn't make the same mistake again. He should bring her up to his level, not be expected to sink to the lower one. Once he's got over his raging hangover, of course...

[Mickey]

 

So as you see Mickey, not all news readers are hell bent on destroying the language, some of us seek to preserve it!!

 

.

 

Actually, I admire newsreaders in the old style, those gentlemen and ladies who understood their job was to read the copy, not act it. Such readers were never abundant in my country and now seem utterly extinct. Worse still, the faces who now pollute our airwaves seem to be editing the copy on the fly, substituting their own tired gaffes and malapropisms for the fresher ones supplied by the copywriters, who are generally a generation younger and ignoranter.