Elements of Style in English
in [Lisp]
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From: Tim Bradshaw on 2 May 2010 08:54 On 2010-05-02 13:50:48 +0100, Xah Lee said: > I kept on reading a bit on Wikipedia about the various style guides. > Fowler's Modern English Usage, seems like one i can endorse. There's > also The Chicago Manual of Style, AP Stylebook, MLA. Actually, i think > othing. The > only firm advice i can give about writing, besides knowing basic > grammar and spelling, is: Study logic and critical thinking, obtain a > analytical mind. This, will improve your writing by far, than a > an firmly > recommend is: Simplified English. This is far more effective than any > established style guides. Of course, all these style talk about how to > form your words and punctuations into cogent sentences are in the > context of formal writing, in science, journal, reports, > documentations, tutorials, textbooks, as opposed to literary > tomfoolery as in essaying, novels, poetry, of which, pigs fly. !
From: Don Phillipson on 2 May 2010 12:14 "Xah Lee" <xahlee(a)gmail.com> wrote in message news:55c53d08-3d4b-4186-a5aa-7f9b5930f670(a)g1g2000pro.googlegroups.com... .. . . > Was reading Wikipedia on The Elements of Style. Here's a interesting quote: > � Edinburgh University linguistics professor Geoffrey Pullum has > criticized The Elements of Style, saying: > The book's toxic mix of purism, atavism, and personal > eccentricity is not underpinned by a proper grounding in English grammar. Pullum's polemic appeared a year ago, perhaps more, and was then discussed in some detail. His main complaint is that American colleges use Strunk & White as a source for grammar (despite the title's indicating that it is about style, not grammar.) Prof. Pullum taught linguistics in US colleges for 20 years before returning to Britain but has no special reputation in his professional field (says my brother, who has some eminence in the same field.) -- Don Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)
From: Xah Lee on 2 May 2010 18:57 On May 2, 9:06 am, Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavall...(a)pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote: > On 2010-05-02 08:50:48 -0400, Xah Lee said: > > > The > > only firm advice i can give about writing, besides knowing basic > > grammar and spelling, is > > What you don't seem to realize, or possibly wilfully ignore, is that no > native speaker would want your advice on writing because almost every > post of yours betrays a faulty grasp of elementary english grammar. You > have to know the rules before you can creatively break them, and you > don't know the rules yet. What you don't seem to realize, as with most pedants, is that writing serves a purpose, a purpose of communication, and when a piece of writing, communicated exactly what the writer wants the reader to feel, understand, with no hiccups in the reading process, that writing is successful. More over, if the style per se, persuaded the reader, tickled his mind, hit her brain, or boiled his blood, that writing is great. now, my little ditty of âElements of Style in Englishâ is a little essay. As you can see, the target audience are people concerned about writing and have read one or two of the mentioned styled guides. In general, they are college graduates, or involved in the writing profession. Now, consider the sentence you criticized: «Of course, all these style talk about how to form your words and punctuations into cogent sentences are in the context of formal writing, in science, journal, reports, documentations, tutorials, textbooks, as opposed to literary tomfoolery as in essaying, novels, poetry, of which, pigs fly.» would any in the audience have problem understanding the above perfectly and fluently? In particular, when the âpigs flyâ part hits them? you not only understood it perfectly, so well, in fact, you took the time to criticize how it is ungrammatical, and accuse me of no basic understanding of grammar. This, is the communicative success of my little piece. Xah â http://xahlee.org/ â
From: Raffael Cavallaro on 2 May 2010 22:31 On 2010-05-02 18:57:21 -0400, Xah Lee said: > What you don't seem to realize, as with most pedants, is that writing > serves a purpose, a purpose of communication, and when a piece of > writing, communicated exactly what the writer wants the reader to > feel, understand, with no hiccups in the reading process, that writing > is successful. To the ear of a native speaker, your writing is filled with hiccups. You don't realize this because you haven't internalized english grammar and usage sufficiently to hear it. You think you're communicating in an unimpeded flow, but a native speaker cringes when reading your posts because of the numerous gaffes, errors that one would never hear from a native speaker. If you don't want to adhere to english grammar because it's too much of an effort for you to learn its byzantine norms (and they are in large part arbitrary and irregular), fine. There are thousands of posters on the internet whose english is far from perfect. > would any in the audience have problem understanding the above > perfectly and fluently? In particular, when the "pigs fly" part hits > them? It isn't at all clear what you mean. "When pigs fly" means "that will never happen." Do you mean that essays and novels will never happen? Do you mean that poetic license makes the impossible happen? Your usage of the phrase makes no sense in the context in which you use it. You can't repurpose long accepted idioms and expect that readers will magically read your mind and intuit your intended meaning. We don't live in your head. One problem with english being widespread is that it is a language in which is easy to attain understandability, but very difficult to attain comprehensive mastery of the huge laundry list of often arbitrary grammatical and usage norms. As a result, non-native speakers often fall into the trap of believing that it is easy to master. It is not. Such people my go for years repeating errors without realizing it because native speakers will understand their intended meaning, but not correct their grammar and/or usage. Please stop trumpeting your broken english as some sort of stylistic choice. It's not. It's obvious to native speakers that it's not. You don't *choose* to write "punctuations" instead of "punctuation," or write sentences with two verbs and no relative pronoun. You just don't know any better. Spanish is a language with relatively few phonemes. As a result, spanish speakers often speak other languages that have phonemes absent from spanish with a quite noticeable accent. My brother was acquainted with a spanish diplomat who, because of his profession, needed to be proficient in a number of languages. He once told my brother "I espeak eseven languages - all of them in espanish!" There is no shame in not having mastered english grammar and usage (or pronunciation) - I speak some spanish, french and german, but I would never claim to have mastery of the grammar and usage of any of these. At the same time, I don't write screeds condemning the authorities on the standard grammar and usage of these languages. Just be yourself without apology. At the same time, stop trying to denigrate accepted, widely used, english grammar and style just because you haven't mastered it. It just makes you look foolish. warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: D Herring on 3 May 2010 00:21
Xah, here's a quick rewrite of your first paragraph. On 05/02/2010 06:57 PM, Xah Lee wrote: > What you don't seem to realize, as with most pedants, is that writing > serves a purpose, a purpose of communication, and when a piece of > writing, communicated exactly what the writer wants the reader to > feel, understand, with no hiccups in the reading process, that writing > is successful. More over, if the style per se, persuaded the reader, > tickled his mind, hit her brain, or boiled his blood, that writing is > great. Like most pedants, you don't realize that writing is a tool for communication. When a written piece accurately communicates the writer's thoughts and feelings without confounding the reader, it has been successfully executed. Moreover, a writing style that catches the reader's fancy, excites the mind, or stirs intense emotion may be considered to be great. While I am no wordsmith, I think most of your other writings could use a similar rewrite. Your pragmatism is worthy; but a fluent, precisely written text is a helpful prerequisite for your stated aims. - Daniel P.S. On a meta note, your works frequently indicate good ideas; but these ideas are often overshadowed by a lack of example implementations, difficulty communicating, narrow focus, or a bit of hubris. |