How about: "I don't want any of you to worry about hurting my feelings, as many Americans would."
My Writing Style
↑ Absolutely perfect. :)
Uriel, on an unrelated note, based on cursory browsing over the Internet, I am noticing that the rules of punctuation don't seem to be consistent.
For example, under the Wikipedia entry for "colon", the following sentence is offered: to err is human: to forgive, divine. I think a semicolon sounds better: to err is human; to forgive, divine. What do you think?
Uriel, on an unrelated note, based on cursory browsing over the Internet, I am noticing that the rules of punctuation don't seem to be consistent.
For example, under the Wikipedia entry for "colon", the following sentence is offered: to err is human: to forgive, divine. I think a semicolon sounds better: to err is human; to forgive, divine. What do you think?
---How about: "I don't want any of you to worry about hurting my feelings, as many Americans would."---
As many Americans would do what? Hurt his feelings?
As many Americans would do what? Hurt his feelings?
↑ I missed that, even though one of my own corrected sentences was similar.
It's ambiguous, Uriel.
It's ambiguous, Uriel.
Uriel and Jasper - you're both too kind, but it's much appreciated. I so hope you will never join the Boycott Scotland brigade...I'd love to escort you both round anywhere you'd care to visit in my country some time in the future and I will apologise in advance for any grey skies, lashing rain showers, stray deer dashing out from the heather in front of the car and, of course, the screeching of bagpipes played by kited blokes with very knobbly knees....it's all like marmite - you either love it or hate it with a passion. The Queen must love it because when she's staying at Balmoral she has a piper doing his stuff outside her window at first light every morning - just imagine that, some wake up call for you.
Forgive my current tetchiness, please. It'll all be over by Christmas so it's reported, but that's what they said in August 1914 apparently.
Forgive my current tetchiness, please. It'll all be over by Christmas so it's reported, but that's what they said in August 1914 apparently.
How can I possibly give an opinion after reading Uriel's comments? The girl is gold.
I don't worship at her feet, mind you; there are already too many worshippers there.
I don't worship at her feet, mind you; there are already too many worshippers there.
Here's an article entitled The Link Between Language and the Perception of Reality:
http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/LinkBetween.html
It's by Suzette Haden Elgin—we talked a bit about her when discussing "shadowing"—and tackles Academic Regalian, among other things.
With every good wish,
Achab
http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/LinkBetween.html
It's by Suzette Haden Elgin—we talked a bit about her when discussing "shadowing"—and tackles Academic Regalian, among other things.
With every good wish,
Achab
Jasper,
Talking about shadowing, what about patterning your writing style after that of some favorite writer of yours?
When I say writer, I don't mean just published authors such as a novelist like Stephen King or an essayst like Harold Bloom. I mean writer in the broader sense of the term—anyone who writes. A poster of this forum with a nice writing style could make a viable choice.
If we do that with audio stuff to improve our accent, why not doing more or less the same thing with written texts?
Um, it just dawned on me that what I just banged out has already been mentioned in this venue. I remember you once mentioned the story of how a young man found his writing to be a lot better after he had copied hundreds of pages of Winston Churchill's works.
Now, I believe a two-pronged approach could be ideal for a learned person like you. At first, you analyze for some time the writing style of whom you choose to mimick. Then, you go on to actually copy by hand a massive amount of their stuff.
By the way, I have the same problem of yours here. I find my writing style inconsistent, just like you find yours. While as a learner of English as a second language I'm certainly "not there" yet when it comes to usage and grammar, I want to work on my style as well. Yep, I want to tackle the three things—style, usage, grammar—at the same time. Why would I want to do that? Well, because I can, because it's a blast, and because... Read on.
Style is considered to be at a higher level than usage and grammar, eh? Something that you're supposed to master only after you've mastered those first two levels of linguistic competence. In fact, I once read of a book in which the author expounded a theory that a beautiful writing style is actually the first thing you should mind, and that grammar rules the correct way and usage patterns the spiffy way would follow, sort of automatically. I remember that it kind of brought the point home. It was convincing. Damn, I don't remember that book's title at the moment. I believe its author was by a linguist, something like that.
As a closing note, I think your writing style is pretty good and I find its description by Uriel very fitting.
Style and Eloquence,
Achab
Talking about shadowing, what about patterning your writing style after that of some favorite writer of yours?
When I say writer, I don't mean just published authors such as a novelist like Stephen King or an essayst like Harold Bloom. I mean writer in the broader sense of the term—anyone who writes. A poster of this forum with a nice writing style could make a viable choice.
If we do that with audio stuff to improve our accent, why not doing more or less the same thing with written texts?
Um, it just dawned on me that what I just banged out has already been mentioned in this venue. I remember you once mentioned the story of how a young man found his writing to be a lot better after he had copied hundreds of pages of Winston Churchill's works.
Now, I believe a two-pronged approach could be ideal for a learned person like you. At first, you analyze for some time the writing style of whom you choose to mimick. Then, you go on to actually copy by hand a massive amount of their stuff.
By the way, I have the same problem of yours here. I find my writing style inconsistent, just like you find yours. While as a learner of English as a second language I'm certainly "not there" yet when it comes to usage and grammar, I want to work on my style as well. Yep, I want to tackle the three things—style, usage, grammar—at the same time. Why would I want to do that? Well, because I can, because it's a blast, and because... Read on.
Style is considered to be at a higher level than usage and grammar, eh? Something that you're supposed to master only after you've mastered those first two levels of linguistic competence. In fact, I once read of a book in which the author expounded a theory that a beautiful writing style is actually the first thing you should mind, and that grammar rules the correct way and usage patterns the spiffy way would follow, sort of automatically. I remember that it kind of brought the point home. It was convincing. Damn, I don't remember that book's title at the moment. I believe its author was by a linguist, something like that.
As a closing note, I think your writing style is pretty good and I find its description by Uriel very fitting.
Style and Eloquence,
Achab
Achab:
It's interesting that you should bring up shadowing, because I have very recently decided to do exactly that. At this point, however, I am having a hard time deciding which author to shadow.
Pursuent to this endeavor, I'm looking for a proficient writer of non-fiction American English. Do you have any ideas? My only requirement is that the author must have written a lot of books.
By the way, your written English is excellent, if you're a non-native, and still very good, indeed, if you're a native.
It's interesting that you should bring up shadowing, because I have very recently decided to do exactly that. At this point, however, I am having a hard time deciding which author to shadow.
Pursuent to this endeavor, I'm looking for a proficient writer of non-fiction American English. Do you have any ideas? My only requirement is that the author must have written a lot of books.
By the way, your written English is excellent, if you're a non-native, and still very good, indeed, if you're a native.
<<<How can I possibly give an opinion after reading Uriel's comments? The girl is gold.
Uriel is a dude!!!
Uriel is a dude!!!
No, Anotherguest is someone else.
If you shadow an English author, your writing will be full of echoes. Every year of imitation will mean two years of rehabilitation.
Study the rhetoric of a foreign author, on the other hand, and that problem will not arise.
Bad writing is a good teacher too. Study the posts you dislike intensely.
If you shadow an English author, your writing will be full of echoes. Every year of imitation will mean two years of rehabilitation.
Study the rhetoric of a foreign author, on the other hand, and that problem will not arise.
Bad writing is a good teacher too. Study the posts you dislike intensely.
Jasper,
Do I have any ideas for a nice choice? Yes, to an extent.
I'm in the process of creating a roster of candidate authors out of which I'll eventually make my pick.
To date, Stephen King and H.L. Mencken are in it. That's a pair of dudes with rather different writing styles, eh?
Stephen King, while mostly an author of novels and short stories, has written at least two nonfiction books.
One is entitled "Danse Macabre", an essay on the horror genre of literature. In it, he gives you his take about which writers should be considered the masters of such type of fiction, you know, he relates about the works that influenced him the most, stuff like that.
The other is "On writing", more or less a guide for the aspiring author of fiction combined with an entertaining autobiographical section.
AS for Mencken, doesn't he write in a unique way? A kind of "mock-formal" style, that's how I would define it. He goes around mocking anything and everything he writes about by doing just that, writing about it, with no actual disparaging comments. Now, usually at least, as sometimes he adds a few here and there. It's fun. He writes about something, and there's a built-in mockery all along. He basically mocks the same writing style he's employing.
There's *something* about how these two authors let their words flow onto paper. I think that's what I'm looking for. I want a writer with a distinctive, powerful dash of that *something*.
I also thought about Carl Sandburg and his massive biography of President Lincoln, but I'm not sure of this one.
It would be, by the way, a middle-of-the-ground choice between an author of fiction and an author of nonfiction. Being a biography, it's certainly a narrative, and this recalls the format and patterns of a novel, but still, well, a presidential biography is not really a novel, eh?
Cordially,
Achab
Do I have any ideas for a nice choice? Yes, to an extent.
I'm in the process of creating a roster of candidate authors out of which I'll eventually make my pick.
To date, Stephen King and H.L. Mencken are in it. That's a pair of dudes with rather different writing styles, eh?
Stephen King, while mostly an author of novels and short stories, has written at least two nonfiction books.
One is entitled "Danse Macabre", an essay on the horror genre of literature. In it, he gives you his take about which writers should be considered the masters of such type of fiction, you know, he relates about the works that influenced him the most, stuff like that.
The other is "On writing", more or less a guide for the aspiring author of fiction combined with an entertaining autobiographical section.
AS for Mencken, doesn't he write in a unique way? A kind of "mock-formal" style, that's how I would define it. He goes around mocking anything and everything he writes about by doing just that, writing about it, with no actual disparaging comments. Now, usually at least, as sometimes he adds a few here and there. It's fun. He writes about something, and there's a built-in mockery all along. He basically mocks the same writing style he's employing.
There's *something* about how these two authors let their words flow onto paper. I think that's what I'm looking for. I want a writer with a distinctive, powerful dash of that *something*.
I also thought about Carl Sandburg and his massive biography of President Lincoln, but I'm not sure of this one.
It would be, by the way, a middle-of-the-ground choice between an author of fiction and an author of nonfiction. Being a biography, it's certainly a narrative, and this recalls the format and patterns of a novel, but still, well, a presidential biography is not really a novel, eh?
Cordially,
Achab
<<<<<How can I possibly give an opinion after reading Uriel's comments? The girl is gold.
Uriel is a dude!!! >>
Hate to burst your bubble, but no, I'm not.
Uriel is a dude!!! >>
Hate to burst your bubble, but no, I'm not.
"If you shadow an English author, your writing will be full of echoes."
@Jasper: what do you mean by this comment?
@Jasper: what do you mean by this comment?
Why not just creating a brand new sentence from scratch? I don't see why anyone should "kludge" with the same sentence so many times to wrestle it into shape.
Here's an option:
_Mind you, I know that oftentimes Americans will not tell you the truth because they don't want to hurt your feelings. Please, don't do that. I'm looking for the unvarnished truth, and I promise I won't be bothered by any eventual not-so-flattering comment._
Now, it's a bit longish, huh? Especially if you contrast it with _I don't want any of you to worry about hurting my feelings, as many Americans would._
But there's no legislation out there that makes it compulsory to be stingy with words, right? More importantly, it's now an unambiguous sentence. Actually, an unambiguous little string of sentences.
I think this is a textbook case of overly dense, exceedingly tight packing of information in one's writing. [1]
I'm sure that if you cogitate over an ambiguous sentence for enough time, you'll be able, at last, to come up with your perfect version of such sentence. But now, why embarking upon a chore like that? It can be damn time-wasting and energy-consuming. It may take you hours. It's quite pointless, when you can easily forge a perfectly viable alternative in a few seconds, ain't it? You can have right away a sentence that is completely different on the surface, but that has the very same point that you wanted to bring home, in vain, with a hard-core densely packed attempt at it.
With every good wish,
Achab
[1] The same can happen in one's speech, of course. Well, in a venue like this it's probably a sort of "writing meets speech" instance. That's how I see message board postings. Sure, they're written text, but there's a conversational tone to them that you won't find in a college paper, for example.
Here's an option:
_Mind you, I know that oftentimes Americans will not tell you the truth because they don't want to hurt your feelings. Please, don't do that. I'm looking for the unvarnished truth, and I promise I won't be bothered by any eventual not-so-flattering comment._
Now, it's a bit longish, huh? Especially if you contrast it with _I don't want any of you to worry about hurting my feelings, as many Americans would._
But there's no legislation out there that makes it compulsory to be stingy with words, right? More importantly, it's now an unambiguous sentence. Actually, an unambiguous little string of sentences.
I think this is a textbook case of overly dense, exceedingly tight packing of information in one's writing. [1]
I'm sure that if you cogitate over an ambiguous sentence for enough time, you'll be able, at last, to come up with your perfect version of such sentence. But now, why embarking upon a chore like that? It can be damn time-wasting and energy-consuming. It may take you hours. It's quite pointless, when you can easily forge a perfectly viable alternative in a few seconds, ain't it? You can have right away a sentence that is completely different on the surface, but that has the very same point that you wanted to bring home, in vain, with a hard-core densely packed attempt at it.
With every good wish,
Achab
[1] The same can happen in one's speech, of course. Well, in a venue like this it's probably a sort of "writing meets speech" instance. That's how I see message board postings. Sure, they're written text, but there's a conversational tone to them that you won't find in a college paper, for example.