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My Writing Style
OK, Travis, are you still with me. In the next paragraph you start to enter the realms of self parody.
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.
Let your readers judge whether your writing is 'dense' or 'light and pithy'. I will go along with the 'dense' adjective; meaning 'thick' and 'unpenetratable'.
I am sure that part of the problem is your pompous attitude which makes it difficult for you to learn and change. You are not right!
If you wanted to eat an elephant, you would first of all cut it up into bite size pieces. If ideas are complex and difficult it helps if the person explaining the ideas has already done this. I know myself, that when I first try to explain something, it comes out as a complex jumble. I then have to stand back and try to assemble what I am trying to say, in a comprehensible way. When way of doing this, is to write in bite size sentences.
I am examining your writing, sentence by sentence, because this is a way of getting it down to a managable size. Fortunately, because there is not much content in the sentences, I do not have to break the sentences down into smaller units.
Have you ever thought of using 'imagery' to get your ideas across in an imaginative way.
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1720094,00.html - Similar
This article has a good opening line.
"An Arkansas state legislator once said of Bill Clinton that he would pat you on the back while he urinated down your leg."
This following sentence, your last sentence, explains why people use jargon. However 'jargon' as a literary form is not highly rated. It is used by people within a small community, almost as a language within a language. In a similar way, lower class Scottish people communicate by grunts, this is because they live in a restricted world in which they have a good idea of what each one is going to say.
"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."
I have got a very good Youtube video clip of an Academic, in a televised debate, being told off, for being pompous and rude.
David Dimbleby tells David Starkey to shut up!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2cJKATwAwc
Tony Blair trained as a Barrister (Advocate). His job was to explain to ordinary people - members of a jury - complex ideas about serious issues. This is one of the great strengths of the British way of doing things.
Question Time
Something that does not exist in the States. The ability to ask the Prime Minister - questions.
This means that our politicians have to be intelligent. They have to be able to think on their feet. They have to be able to give as good as they get.
I know that Democracy has its failings and it has been much criticised. But not all criticism is negative and petty and 'below the belt'.
Google: starkey pompous little man
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,490
I actually quite like David Starkey. Importantly for a television presenter, he is entertaining. Also you can see that he is emotionally involved in his subject, he likes to imagine himself as someone of the stature of Henry VIII. It is ever so funny when he super imposes his portrait next the portrait of Henry VIII.
I do have my doubts about his sanity. But I am sure that he can keep his more outlandish tendencies under control. What it must have been like to be able to sample a bevy of Ladies-in-Waiting not to mention more common creatures.
David Starkey: The history man - Profiles, People - The Independent
The thing about the historian David Starkey - and God, he's going to absolutely hate me for saying this (he does have his reputation for being rude and a ...
www.independent.co.uk/.../david-starkey-the-history-man-427499.html - Cached - Similar
Who says History is not sexy?
David Starkey on Anne Boleyn - Part One
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ea8FvCIxco
I found Dr Starkey's behaviour to be unbelievably arrogant, pompous, condescending and blatantly rude.
What a very, very silly little man David Starkey is.
I would like to express my admiration for Jo Swinson for not slapping the patronising pompous little twit.
David Starkey is rude, arrogant, verbose and an intellectual snob talking down to, and trying to demean those on the panel who disagreed with him. He may be a great academic, but as a human being he has still much to learn, starting with humility.
What a wonderfully intelligent man Mr. David Starkey. An intellectual of great knowledge that is of no doubt. How unfortunate he should show himself as an arrogant, pompous, patronising, bullying and condescending person not worthy of his intelligence. How dare anyone have an opinion for fear of the rude backlash: to one lady in the audience¿ "sit there, shut up ...and learn".
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/4317530.stm)
Funny question to David Starkey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JMut2VHQL0&feature=PlayList&p=C3034A5BA586111B&index=7
Jasper,
I think your writing is clear. It isn't gummed up with things it doesn't need. I like that. If, on occasion, you wax on a bit longer than usual, I don't mind. You have something to say.
Heh. The thing is that my writing is aimed at those with a linguistic interest in English, not at those learning English - and my writing style is aimed at those who are already very much literate in English and who are already familiar with basic linguistic concepts. Actually, much of my writing is about English dialectology and my own dialect in particular (as it is IMHO quite linguistically interesting and there are not many people who have written about English in this area), and if you are learning English I would actually not recommend one use the pronunciations that I describe in many of my posts. (My dialect is pretty far from any standard variety of English, and is particularly extreme by the standards of a North American English dialect; I would only recommend learning it per se at all if you are planning on spending a long period of time in southeastern Wisconsin or the Chicago area, and even then it would be probably more useful to actually speak something more General American-like simply since it is not the best-understood of dialects for English-speakers in general, and even the locals are generally able to speak in formal registers much closer to GA as needed.)
Another part of the reason I write the way I write is that I recognize that there is no need to write anything like one speaks; there is no need for written language and spoken language to be close together at all. How I would speak, if written down in standard English orthography, would be completely out of place for any sort of serious writing about linguistics topics. And if I am not to write like I speak, why not embrace diglossia and take advantage of the full range of expression permitted by the formal register in which I write, rather than limiting myself to those forms that I would also normally speak? And if one is to embrace diglossia, why not treat the language in which one writes, especially if it is one like literary English, like an abstract means of expressing ideas as such, rather than as a mere transcription of how anyone would speak, even formally?
Travis, I think I owe you an apology for exposing you to so much criticism. Who woulda thunk it? I had no idea that Academic Regalian evoked such bitterness.
For my own part, my assertion that you write in Academic Regalian was merely an observation, not criticism. It's a style in which I could never write, not being talented enough in English composition.
I have met others who can write in AR, who assert, as you do, that it's opaque because it's so precise, but to us little guys, it's sometimes impenetrable.
Robin Michael,
Please shut the fuck up! What is your problem? If you can't understand Travis' writing then that's your problem. Maybe you should think about going back to school. I can understand his writing fine, I can read through his posts at a normal pace and not lose much and I am not even a fucking academic. Seriously, go get a life... there's no point in expressing complex things to you in simple language because your mind is so simple you wouldn't understand it anyway.
To: Jasper
"I had no idea that Academic Regalian evoked such bitterness."
I do not feel bitterness towards Travis. I find the sort of comments by 'get a life' offensive, which is hardly surprising as they are meant to be offensive.
What am I trying to do?
I would like Travis to write in a style that I found more readily comprehensible. I must admit that the particular subject area that Travis finds interesting, I am not particularly interested in.
I do not mind co-existing with Travis.
Why am I criticising Travis? Travis invited comment by writing about his 'Writing Style'.
I would be quite interested to see a post in which Travis writes as he speaks, but under the name of Travis.
One of the examples that I gave of imaginative writing was:
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1720094,00.html - Similar
This article has a good opening line.
"An Arkansas state legislator once said of Bill Clinton that he would pat you on the back while he urinated down your leg."
I am fairly sure that this sentence started out as: "Bill Clinton that he would pat you on the back while he pissed down your leg."
This discussion, or debate, if you like, ties in other Topics such as:
"Academic language vs ordinary language"; and "Whenever possible, use words with Germanic roots, not French".
When I write in this Forum, I write thinking that what I write will be read by speakers of English as a Foreign Language. I am not writing for people in an Academic Community who are well versed in English. So I make a deliberate effort to avoid using some of the words that Travis delights in using. Having said that, it is stimulating to see a wide range of words. In some ways I wish I found Travis's posts more accessible.
diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia (pronounced /daɪˈɡlɒsiə/, from Greek: διγλωσσία) is a situation where a given language community uses two languages or dialects: the first being the community's present day vernacular and the second being either an ancestral version of the same vernacular from centuries earlier (example: Arabic, Chinese) or a distinct yet closely related present day dialect, e.g. Norwegian with Bokmål and Nynorsk.
Acronym, Definition. IMHO, In My Humble Opinion. IMHO, In My Honest Opinion.
While "orthography" colloquially is often used synonymously with spelling, spelling is only part of orthography. Other elements of the field of orthography are hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks and punctuation. Orthography describes or defines the set of symbols (graphemes and diacritics) used, and the rules about how to write these symbols.
Plain English Campaign
Plain English Campaign is an independent group fighting for plain English in public communication. We oppose gobbledygook, jargon and legalese.
www.plainenglish.co.uk/ - Cached - Similar
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‘So what's plain English?’
• Keep your sentences short
• Prefer active verbs
• Use 'you' and 'we'
• Use words that are appropriate for the reader
• Don't be afraid to give instructions
• Avoid nominalizations
• Use lists where appropriate
Avoid 'nominalizations'
A nominalization is a verb that has been turned into a noun
Incorrect Nominalization:
Defense counsel made an objection to the prosecution's question.
Correct Use of a Strong Verb:
Defense counsel objected to the prosecution's question.
Incorrect Adjectivization:
The judge was dismissive of counsel's arguments.
Correct Use of Strong Verb:
The judge dismissed counsel's arguments.
Nomininalization
The most common reason writers do this is that they think it is more appropriate to formal writing. It is not. In legal writing, readers most appreciate clarity, conciseness, and strong writing.
Keep your sentences short
Most experts would agree that clear writing should have an average sentence length of 15 to 20 words. Mix long and short sentences.
Prefer active verbs
Good uses of passives
There are times of course when it might be appropriate to use a passive.
• To make something less hostile − 'this bill has not been paid' (passive) is softer than
'you have not paid this bill' (active).
• To avoid taking the blame − 'a mistake was made' (passive) rather than 'we made a
mistake' (active).
• When you don't know who or what the doer is − 'the England team has been picked'.
• If it simply sounds better.
Use 'you' and 'we'
Try to call the reader 'you', even if the reader is only one of many people you are talking about generally.
Use words that are appropriate for the reader
"Discussion forum
Ask a question or talk about the English language (including how to learn English) and languages in general."
Don't be afraid to give instructions
Sit!
Brush your teeth
Avoid nominalizations
A nominalization is a type of abstract noun. (Is that plain English?) In other words, it is the name of something that isn't a physical object, such as a process, technique or emotion.
Nominalizations are
Verb Nominalization
complete completion
introduce introduction
provide provision
fail failure
arrange arrangement
investigate investigation
They sound as if nothing is actually happening in the sentence.
Use lists where appropriate
Apologising - put yourself in the reader's shoes.
Myths
• You can start a sentence with and, but, because, so or however.
• You can split infinitives. So you can say to boldly go.
• You can end a sentence with a preposition. In fact, it is something we should stand up for.
• And you can use the same word twice in a sentence if you can't find a better word.
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