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My Writing Style
"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._ "
There are a couple of ways the idea for the sentence could be parsed.
For example, someone could say, "Why include the references to Americans at all?" My answer would be that this forum is populated by members all over the world, and I need to address my point in a way that will include both Americans, who shade the truth in order to spare feelings, and Continental Europeans, who are more inclined in general to be blunt.
So I conclude that the reference to Americans must be included.
Achab, this brings us 'round full circle to your suggestion, which brings us back once again to the sense of "the flow of words". Your suggestion indee includes all the necessary points, but I'm not comfortable with the flow of the words, which seems to reflect an element of melodrama. (Or would this be considered "tone"?)
<<<Uriel is a dude!!!
Hate to burst your bubble, but no, I'm not.>>
That's odd. I always thought she had a penis, Uriel.
I personally don't detect a melodramatic tone there, but well, you may not be alone on that point.
Anyway, here's still another alternative version:
_Hey, I know that my fellow Americans will often downplay their own negative comments to avoid hurting your feelings. Don't yield to such need with me. I'm looking for the unvarnished truth, and we have thick skin here, guaranteed._
Whaddya make of it?
With every good wish,
Achab
Jasper,
although I haven't posted on this forum recently, I've read many of your posts and I think I can safely say that your writing is always clear, concise and well-planned. I can just echo Uriel's views - she summed up rather succintly what my first impression of you was based on your posts: you come across as an educated, polite and probably a slightly reticent (possibly southern) gentleman. I envy your flair for precision and correct spelling and punctuation (the latter not being my forte :-)). Your posts are a pleasure to read - such carefully thought-out pieces of writing are quite rare these days on most forums (or fora? - I'm not sure about this one :-)), but Antimoon, being a language forum, might be an exception.
I agree with those who say that the style of writing is a true reflection of one's real character or online persona. It's considered easy to pretend that you are someone else online since you can easily conceal your identity by using nicknames and hiding your face. However, on the long run, maintaining a facade that is completely false proves to be the most difficult thing, if not an entirely impossible one.
I enjoy reading almost every single post coming from non-trolls and I delight in the different styles of writing. I tend to have a vivid (of course imaginary) picture of every person whose post I'm reading. However, sometimes it's hard to tell what the person's real character might be like. Since Antimoon is a language forum (and I'm repeating myself as per usual), it's full of non-native speakers of English (like myself). I might be wrong, but I think it's more difficult to develop a distinctive style in a second or a foreign language. Most of us tend to write or speak either ever so formally to the point of tedious neutrality or sound "street" by using too many colloquialisms or even obscenities inappropriately. But this diversity makes forums like this interesting.
As far as some other people are concerned...
Uriel is some sort of a veteran here (I know it's impolite to call a lady a veteran - I'm not implying that you are old :-)) and I also know her from Langcafe. She seems a nice, streetsmart, witty, educated woman with lots of life experience (leastways, the amount of life experience a relatively young person can have :-)) to me (based on her posts again).
As for Damian...Some of you have mentioned his verbosity and his writing style verging on floridity...I can't be bothered whether he is overly verbose or not: his knowledge of the British culture(s) is impressive and he never fails to amuse us with fascinating stories from his beloved home country. I don't mind floridity, either...I might say that I have a secret fondness for floridity. :-) He doesn't speak or write like your average Briton? (Someone mentioned that in an earlier post, probably Robin Michael) So what? Why should he (or anyone) speak or write like everyone? For someone who studied literature and is a budding journalist developing his own unique style is a must...or might I say that an occupational hazard? :-) Besides, I've never had a hard time understanding the words and expressions he uses. I don't think it's a problem for anyone familiar with British colloquialisms. But if I encounter some strange Scottish slang expressions (just for the sake of alliteration), I go to the dictionary as soon as possible...Especially the Scottish-Hungarian one, which haven't been published yet...for aught I know. But the Scottish-English one will do the trick...
Travis' style is a bit weird to me despite the fact I find it comprehensible. What makes him less glib and facile (for want of a better word - in its obsolete, strictly positive sense without all the negative connotations) a phrasemaker is that his sentences are very, very long and complex. Not to mention the technical expressions he uses, which I, as a student of theoretical linguistics, don't mind at all. All in all, I enjoy reading his posts, too, not necessarily because of his style, but because he gives a lot of information on linguistic topics in particular. His command of the subject is extremely impressive for someone who is not a linguist. Even for someone who is a linguist. My first impression of him was that he was a bit of a geek...and I was not mistaken. He's an IT technologist or something along the lines. :-)
Forgive me overall verbosity. I'm compensating for my long-lost posts.
'my' instead of 'me' in the last sentence
'in the long run' instead of 'on the long run' somewhere above
Liz: Thank you for your kind words. Your analysis of my writing, as well as that of others, was interesting.
Achab: that sentence does certainly seem to cover all the bases, but the flow of the words does not fit my personality; rather, the flow seems almost Uriel-esque. (She's a bit more vital, more extroverted; I am more somber, more introverted.)
I'm coming to the unfortunate conclusion that there's no great way to construct that sentence. The best I can come up with is a hybrid using some of Uriel's words, to wit: "I don't want you to worry, as an American would, about hurting my feelings." I'm still not too comfortable with the slightly awkward, choppy flow of these words, but I think it's about the best we can do.
The comment means: If you study the rhetoric of an English author intensively, you will acquire your author's rhythms, phrasing, and diction.
Believe me or believe me not but THIS is the first time I have noticed this particular thread, which explains the reason for my non participation in the discussion - until now. Ay this very moment I am really busy and have to shoot off out of town again very soon but I certainly will contribute later on today sometime - in the meantime MANY thanks for all the nice comments concerning my posts.
The truth is this - I adore words, I adore the English Language, I thank that Being in the Sky for allowing me to be born into the Scottish version of it....and yes - verbosity and floridity (what a lovely word that is!) are some of my greatest weaknesses - Miss Smith, my much loved English teacher in High School was continually berating me for using twenty words when only five would have done to get the message across. I can't help it, but i'm getting there as in the job I'm now doing I can't afford to indulge in floridity so freely as I do in this Forum, where I feel more at liberty to do so. I quite understand those people in here who probably get pissed off with it, and they have every right to feel that way.
Apart from the posts of some of the comparatively rare dafties I enjoy reading ALL posts in this Forum, and it's incredible how we come to recognise the different writing styles of all our friends in Antimoon, each of them highly valued and appreciated. We all respect free speech, and I'm fully aware of my tendency to stray from the topic in hand far too often - it's all part of my "problem" I'm afraid, but I have sought counselling - from my employers mainly.
It's a whole lot chillier in London today - officially the UK summer ends at midnight on Monday and autumn (sorry, fall) starts at 00:01 hours on Tuesday morning. I forget right now who that famous British person was who maintained that the "English Summer starts on the first of July only to end on the second of July."
Thanks again, people - see you later. Apologies again for inadvertently missing this thread - how it happened I really dinnae know, some kind of visual blockage maybe.
↑ I hope you never change a thing about your writing style, Damian. I look forward to your posts.
I blush as I say it, but Damian's posts make me want to sleep with him. I think he would do a very good job with writing those sensuous novels with pornographic covers that old ladies purchase at the bookstores (I mean this as a compliment!).
Thanks, Jasper.....likewise with all of yours.
To the last poster......at the age of 27 I'm not sure I'm capable of blushing any more no matter what, to be honest with you, in spite of my very fair complexion. Perhaps I did as a callow youth in my early teens, but life itself in the big bad world changes people, does it not?
I know you were speaking hypothetically, and it was well meant - thank you.
As there have been a number of comments on this thread, which I really have not been following much up until now, I should make a few comments on just why I write like I do. The reason why I write in a so-called "academic regalian" style is that that is the style that is typically used in serious writing about linguistic topics, which tends to be academic in nature to begin with, and because it is a style that allows a lot of precision in expressing very complex ideas in a very dense fashion. Furthermore, my writing is intentionally in a high literary style, as I tend to regard writing in English as people once regarded writing in Latin, or later Standard French or Standard German; my writing is intentionally highly removed from everyday spoken English as I tend to prefer to treat English as a classical literary language when writing, not reflecting the everyday speech of the writer, which may be quite far from that of many other native English-speakers and what non-native speakers of English are taught in school (especially in the case of my native dialect of English).
Of course, one may doubt whether my writing is dense per se, but the matter is that long sentences and complex clause structures does not make writing not dense; if anything, it allows writing to be much denser than otherwise as it allows one to omit a lot of the extraneous forms that would be necessary to connect ideas together were what I writing broken into smaller "bite-sized" sentences. Likewise, many of the "big words" that I use actually enable very complex ideas to be expressed with a very high degree of economy of space, whereas if I had to express my ideas without them I would have to use up far more space explaining the ideas that are neatly summed up by such forms without any more elaboration than necessary.
My reaction to dense writing.
FCUK "academic regalian"
FCUK fart arses
Why can't these ivory tower academics communicate in plain English?
What is their problem?
My immediate reaction on seeing someone one called 'FCUK': French Connection United Kingdom, I thought that this must be an immature British person who enjoys saying the word FUCK in 'inappropriate' situations.
'Inappropriate' is another interesting word. 'Inappropriate' is a word that can be used to describe behaviour that ranges from the criminal to the officially embarrassing. Local Councils are very concerned that individuals might exhibit 'inappropriate' behaviour. The most 'inappropriate' behaviour possible is 'treachery' or 'treason' which in the olden days was punished in the most severe way possible - traditionally be being 'hung, drawn and quartered'.
I am in danger of turning into Damian, trying to introduce novel words into popular journalism. However anything must be better than turning into Travis, the Linguistic Expert, who writes in a deliberately unintelligible way in order to assure us of his academic credentials. In this way 'knowledge' is retained by an educated elite, who speak a foreign language (Latin) and who refuse to converse with ordinary people or speak their language.
Travis has written about his writing style. Personally I feel that his writing style is very poor. Travis seems to think that his writing style is the one favoured by North American Universities. Well, that does not make it a universal style!
So, I will examine what he has written and see if I can find fault with it.
First sentence:
"As there have been a number of comments on this thread, which I really have not been following much up until now, I should make a few comments on just why I write like I do."
Does it have to be so long?
George Orwell "Why I write"
George Orwell: Why I Write
24 Jul 2004 ... Why I Write, the essay of George Orwell. First published: summer 1946 by/in Gangrel, GB, London.
orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/english/e_wiw - Cached - Similar
I am sure that one of the things that will emerge from this investigation is a difference in British and American styles and values. I have read several American text books and I remember a Prentice Hall series that was both long winded and boring with very little content.
Second sentence: Why am I pompous?
The reason why I write in a so-called "academic regalian" style is that that is the style that is typically used in serious writing about linguistic topics, which tends to be academic in nature to begin with, and because it is a style that allows a lot of precision in expressing very complex ideas in a very dense fashion.
I think I am beginning to prove my point.
Third sentence: If anyone is still reading. By now this is starting to require a serious effort beyond the capability of 'Learners of English as a Foreign Language' which I thought this Forum as aimed at.
Academic Publishing - Vanity Publishing
I know academics are often required to publish so many works every year. But how much of this is actually read? How much of this is read, voluntarily?
Third sentence:
Furthermore, my writing is intentionally in a high literary style, as I tend to regard writing in English as people once regarded writing in Latin, or later Standard French or Standard German; my writing is intentionally highly removed from everyday spoken English as I tend to prefer to treat English as a classical literary language when writing, not reflecting the everyday speech of the writer, which may be quite far from that of many other native English-speakers and what non-native speakers of English are taught in school (especially in the case of my native dialect of English).
I think that your third sentence really takes the biscuit! Congratulations. I recognise that Uriel has talent. It is very difficult to achieve something if you do not have ability to start off with. Funnily enough, I know that this is one of the real virtues of the American education system. That it is not as exclusive and elitist as many other educational systems.
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