81,897
edits
How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One: Difference between revisions
How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One (view source)
Revision as of 11:58, 5 January 2021
, 5 January 2021no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) m (Amwelladmin moved page How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One - Book Review to How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One) |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 12: | Line 12: | ||
I’m not sure why these would be the fundaments of any linguistic structure, other than because Fish says so, nor what to do about sentences, like this one, that attempt to do all three. Nor that there aren’t perfectly well sentences that do none. (Most of {{author|James Ellroy}}’s never get that far, and he is one of the most stylish writers on the planet). | I’m not sure why these would be the fundaments of any linguistic structure, other than because Fish says so, nor what to do about sentences, like this one, that attempt to do all three. Nor that there aren’t perfectly well sentences that do none. (Most of {{author|James Ellroy}}’s never get that far, and he is one of the most stylish writers on the planet). | ||
Talk of {{author|James Ellroy}} reminds me: what Fish’s prescription, contra Strunk, White & Ellroy (now ''there'' would be a fine book on style!) encourages ''verbosity''. Fish ''loves'' long, wordy, flowery writing: he’s a lawyer, after all. He devotes the second half of his book to a canter through his favourite sentences from literature. Most, to my eyes, could have been improved with a full stop or two and hearty use of a red pen, and all seemed selected as much to burnish the author’s own intellectual credentials as anything else. | Talk of {{author|James Ellroy}} reminds me: what Fish’s prescription, contra Strunk, White & Ellroy (now ''there'' would be a fine book on style!) encourages ''verbosity''. Fish ''loves'' long, wordy, flowery writing: he’s a lawyer, after all.<ref>It turns out Stanley Fish is a law ''professor'', but not a lawy''er'' — he holds no legal qualification at all! This is quite an achievement.</ref> He devotes the second half of his book to a canter through his favourite sentences from literature. Most, to my eyes, could have been improved with a full stop or two and hearty use of a red pen, and all seemed selected as much to burnish the author’s own intellectual credentials as anything else. | ||
Fish believes that ''Strunk & White''’s preference for concision is a modern error that robs the language of richness and diversity. Now, granted, I don’t always practice what I preach, but I profoundly disagree: It is easy (as Fish demonstrates, using his subordinate and additive templates) to write infinitely long sentences. All you need is to be ''bothered enough to do so''. This, in Professor Fish’s honour, I call the [[Fish Principle]]. But it is harder to write short ones. It is ''much'' harder to write ''good'' short ones. | Fish believes that ''Strunk & White''’s preference for concision is a modern error that robs the language of richness and diversity. Now, granted, I don’t always practice what I preach, but I profoundly disagree: It is easy (as Fish demonstrates, using his subordinate and additive templates) to write infinitely long sentences. All you need is to be ''bothered enough to do so''. This, in Professor Fish’s honour, I call the [[Fish Principle]]. But it is harder to write short ones. It is ''much'' harder to write ''good'' short ones. | ||
| Line 24: | Line 24: | ||
*[[Plain English]] | *[[Plain English]] | ||
*The [[Fish Principle]] | *The [[Fish Principle]] | ||
{{ref}} | |||