Sentence Fragments and Run-on sentences

[Clevernick]

This is the other thing that, in my experience, many writers have trouble with, even the pros at times. The following rules may be broken within speech, but not in narrative, until you have sold at least 500,000 copies of a book. Then you can tell me when exceptions may be made.

1. A sentence contains one verb. No less. If it's less, add one. If more, see rules three and four. So these are wrong:


What an incredible day! (No verb, so not a sentence. Allowed only in speech.)
She went to the liquor store and she bought some Frangelico and she drove home and she drank herself into a stupor and she woke up hung over. (Too many verbs; really a bunch of sentences.)

2. Participles, such as "eating", "lying", "writhing", are not, by themselves, verbs!


Lying beside her on the bed. (Not a sentence because "lying" isn't a verb)
The robot lying beside her on the bed. (Still the same problem)
The robot was lying beside her on the bed. (Better)


3. Commas do not join sentences. Join two closely-related sentences with a semicolon. (If it would make sense to use a period, it does NOT make sense to use a comma.)



Commas do not join sentences, join two closely-related sentences with a semicolon. (Wrong)
Commas do not join sentences; join two closely-related sentences with a semicolon. (Better)



Exceptions (very short sentences, etc) only as in Strunk and White: http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk.html

4. Conjunctions (and, but, or) may join related sentences, but use precision.

"It was a sunny day and she screamed." is not a good use of a conjunction. Choose your joining method with care to help the reader understand.


My sub really hates this particular whip, I like it. (wrong)
My sub really hates this particular whip and I like it. (poor)
My sub really hates this particular whip; I like it. (correct but ambiguous)
My sub really hates this particular whip but I like it. (good - relationship explained)
My sub really hates this particular whip; that's why I like it. (excellent)


And a wonderful example from Douglas Hofstadter -- Choose your conjunctions with care -- you can make truth into absurdity otherwise:


Politicians lie. Cast iron sinks. (True)
Politicians lie and cast iron sinks. (True but poorly chosen conjunction)
Politicians lie in cast iron sinks. (O RLY?)




5. Memorize Strunk chapter II (it's very short!) and then re-read the above.
Strunk chapter II again: http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk.html

Some of Strunk's rules from 1918, like the use of serial commas, are becoming more flexible lately. Still you will do much better knowing these than not knowing them. They are the anchor; without them you are adrift. Know them and build.

[MMI]

None of the above applies to simple phrases. You can disregard them utterly even if you have never published a word before.

And, of course, it is perfectly possible to break rules without knowing them, and still be understood - and that's what most writers are aiming for. After all, what authority is there for any rule of grammar? Certainly not OUP or the US Government Printing Office. Their standards have persuasive authority only.

Common usage is the only reliable authority I can think of.

I, personally, reject any notion that the possesive form of Jesus is Jesus' and the suggestion that the possessive of conscience is conscience' is supremely ridiculous.

It's not bad grammar that is the problem - any one of us can cope with grammatical mistakes while we are reading, and most of us will pass over them without even noticing. The rest of us are probably pedants.

No, the real problem is poor expression: not making the proper connections between your thoughts and your writing. You know what you mean, but somehow, you set it down on paper ambiguously.

I once submited a piece of writing for a competition in which I broke virtually every rule of grammar that applied. But my story made perfect sense and conveyed the flavour of the character's thoughts that rigid grammatical precision would have destroyed. I didn't think, as I was writing, Ah! I shall ignore the need to make sure subject and verb agree. I simply had to write it that way.

[Alex Bragi]

MM1, I don't know enough about the techincal side of writing to agree or disagree with you however, (fuck! I hope that comma's in the right place *gg*) no matter which way you look at it, I feel sure this thread of Clevernick's will be of interest to and a good reference for almost all writers here.

:)

[MMI]

Actually, I posted my response to Clevernick before I noticed it was a "Sticky" - which I assume means it has the authority of a Papal Bull or something (exaggerating for effect: no sarcasm intended). My post was really just to point out that there are no hard-and-fast rules in English grammar, although I do recognise all of those mentioned by Clevernick and I know they are widely accepted. But I now realise I have posted in the wrong place. Accordingly, I would be happy for it to be moved to a general discussion area (with a reference to Clevernick's post too) and hopefully it will provoke an interesting debate or deepen people's understanding of good writing. Lord knows, I need help there!

My attack - if attack it was - was against William Strunk, not Clevernick. Maybe his "rules" were appropriate in USA in 1918, but English is much less rigid nowadays, and has moved on from where it was at the end of World War I.

[fetishdj]

English is one of the most contradictory and strangest languages in existence in terms of grammar. Quite often the rules do not make sense because it has been garnered from several sources over the years and in a way that was actually illogical because the original scholars who compiled the rules in the 17th century made certain assumptions. The main one they made was that English was a Latinate/Romantic language when really it is a Latinate/Germanic hybrid being derived from both Anglo-saxon and Norman French roots. An example of this is the use of the words Pig and Pork and Cow and Beef to describe the animal and the food that comes from it.

This why the rules of English grammar often do not make sense when compared to other languages. It is also why it is easy to break said laws without knowing it.

A good reference (certainly for punctuation abuse) is Lynn Truss's 'Eats, shoots and leaves' which is a fun and irreverent look at grammar abuse for pedants.

You can also often get away with breaking the laws when the aesthetics of a written work are affected by it. The classic example of this is the Star Trek 'to boldly go' rather than the correct 'to go boldly'. The latter is grammatically correct whereas the former has a greater poetic quality. I am not sure whether being published gives you the right to break the rules but more having the confidence to be able to apply the poetic license laws correctly and be able to tell an editor this without them eating you alive (bearing in mind that good editors are usually horrible, nasty pedants who get a kick out of making you suffer :) ).

[Clevernick]

Okay, pedantics aside. I don't care if you boldly split an infinitive, or dangle a participle. At least not so long as you don't dangle it in a ludicrous place, as in Strunk's example:


Being in a dilapidated condition, I was able to buy the house very cheap.

The list of stuff I pointed to above is stuff that authors routinely screw up that just LOOKS WRONG to the reader. It breaks people out of the story. Even people who would write that way themselves are unsettled by these errors. Then maybe they get distracted.

And if you're trying to convince a reader to part with their lunch money to buy your book, the last thing you want is to have them lose interest in your story and start thinking about their laundry, or their boyfriend, or your grammar.

Please, guys. I'm a linguist too, and I'm well aware of the difference between Romance and Germanic grammar (since I had to learn French, Italian and Swedish all the hard way.) And English grammar is NOT illogical. (The spelling is, but not the grammar.)

English Grammar is a joy. It is a more refined and powerful version of Nordic grammar, or Northern Germanic if you prefer, and it's quite consistent. It includes several extra features over its similar but simpler cousins (like Nordic or Dutch) that make it possible to pack ideas more powerfully and tightly.

But only if you take the trouble to use them correctly.

Of all the thousands of ways that people can and do use them incorrectly, I've gone to the trouble of picking just five above that really force me to edit an otherwise great story. This is a service to you. It's to help you sharpen your writing in a powerful way, with a minimum of learning and effort. I hope you appreciate it.

[Clevernick]

P.S. I gave two cases where these rules can be broken. One is in spoken dialogue, because people don't have to speak grammatically.

The other is when you're a bestselling author and you don't have to listen to pedants.

I don't agree that there are other times.

[MMI]

Anything a best-selling author can do, anyone can do. And, with the possible exception of clasical Chinese, isn't writing simply a way of putting the spoken word into a permanent form?

I agree that the snippet you have quoted is ludicrous, but it seems that otherwise we must agree to disagree.

English grammar is a joy, when it isn't confusing. But who can help being confused when even the best linguists don't know whether the posessive 's is an inflection or a clitic.

And why should the word one take 's in the posessive when the rule is that pronouns do not have an apostrophe?

Confused?

[Clevernick]

Anything a best-selling author can do, anyone can do. And, with the possible exception of clasical Chinese, isn't writing simply a way of putting the spoken word into a permanent form?

I agree that the snippet you have quoted is ludicrous, but it seems that otherwise we must agree to disagree.


This is a feedback forum for helping people get published. Getting published nearly always requires good grammar and correct writing style. Believe me, from both ends, I know. If you want my help getting published, I'm here to help.

If you can't get published but prefer to feel good about the way you already write, talk to MMI. See? Something for everyone.



English grammar is a joy, when it isn't confusing. But who can help being confused when even the best linguists don't know whether the posessive 's is an inflection or a clitic.
This is bafflegab. Anyone can pick out a fringe rule and mention that "experts don't know" the answer, and therefore try to invalidate an entire field. But any field of knowledge worth studying has fringes with fuzzy answers. Get over it. The rules I'm giving here are well in the middle of the parts that there's no doubt about.




And why should the word one take 's in the posessive when the rule is that pronouns do not have an apostrophe?

Confused?

More bafflegab. Pronouns don't have an apostrophe. Except when they do. Live with it. "one's" as a possessive takes an apostrophe to distinguish it from "ones", the plural of "one". Any complex group of rules has exceptions, and natural languages are, um, no exception. Doesn't mean you throw up your hands the first time someone quotes an exception at you.

[Clevernick]

P.S. A little note on rules:

I honestly don't know ANYONE (including myself) who is really good at these rules because they studied them. Studying the rules is a second-choice method and nearly always leaves you making occasional errors, because of the exceptions pointed out by others above.

The people who can really edit books do so because their brains naturally absorb the text they see, spelling, grammar and content, and somehow sort it out for themselves. They build the rules in their own heads.
Then they learn a few rules in school which help them correct or simplify some rules they got wrong.

Then they practice editing and see some rules they didn't know and learn them as they go. And then they're good.

So when I send you the rules, I realize it's no fun trying to learn them. But looking like you know them tells the publisher that they can count on you.

But really there are thousands, and you won't learn them all as a bunch of rules and exceptions. I'm pointing out a small subset of five that, if you take the trouble, can make a publisher or editor less likely to throw you out on your ear. Or if you send your MS to me, will make me more likely to want to edit what remains.

[MMI]

Isn't discussion as good as feedback?

Sure I only quoted two examples, but I could have cited more. So bafflegab looks to me like a way of belittling the question before offering a response that is somewhat dubious. Why is it necessary to avoid confusion with the plural form of a pronoun that has no plural? (I'm aware that one is also a noun, but its plural is rare and unlikely to cause the confusion you suggest.)

But I accept entirely that publishers' standards have to be observed, or you don't get published. Publishers don't care about why apostrophes exist, only that you use them the way they want. And if your publisher hasn't moved on from 1918, then who am I to comment? In that light, I withdraw my observations.

[Clevernick]

Isn't discussion as good as feedback?

Yes it is, and that's why I'm leaving your comments up here instead of deleting them or closing the thread. But I'll be merciless, too, since you're challenging the whole basis of my instructions here. Beware.



Sure I only quoted two examples, but I could have cited more. So bafflegab looks to me like a way of belittling the question before offering a response that is somewhat dubious.


You could quote any number of difficult bits of English to make people's heads ache, and it wouldn't in any way make the rules less valid or useful. The fact that you're quoting these difficult bits in order to support your insupportable thesis that basic rules "don't apply to simple phrases" shows that you have nothing important to say. You are arm-waving. You begin with a radical thesis that basically says all rules are useless, and then support it by quoting rules that have difficult exceptions, or are becoming outdated. Or worse, strawman rules you made up yourself. This is not argument or even discussion. It's trying to confuse, and playing to emotion instead of reason.

Hence my well-chosen label of "bafflegab". If you wish to support your ridiculous thesis, don't quote examples of difficult or apparently contradictory rules. Tell me why "simple phrases" (whatever those are) don't need to follow English grammar rules. Learn to argue (premise, support, conclusion, remember?) and you'll get respect.



Why is it necessary to avoid confusion with the plural form of a pronoun that has no plural? (I'm aware that one is also a noun, but its plural is rare and unlikely to cause the confusion you suggest.)

LOL. I wanted to give you three examples, but all the ones I could think of were just too rare and obscure. Oh, wait.... *snort* :icon176:

You made a strawman rule that possessive pronouns take no apostrophe. No such rule exists. Strunk says: "The pronominal possessives hers, its, theirs, yours, and oneself have no apostrophe." That's it. The rule you made up is incorrect so tearing it down proves nothing.

Obviously, "one's" does take an apostrophe. "Its" does not. Making a strawman and then tearing it down to prove that rules are confusing proves only that rules are confusing. Which wasn't your thesis. Pretending it was in retrospect is again, bafflegab. And that's a polite word in this case.



But I accept entirely that publishers' standards have to be observed, or you don't get published. Publishers don't care about why apostrophes exist, only that you use them the way they want.

Sounds like a bitter bit of sour grapes to me.

In reality, publishers are in business to make money, not to correct your grammar. They want the apostrophes to look right, and tenses to match, and continuity to be good, because if they don't, some readers will *pop* out of the story in confusion, thinking "that didn't look right", or "wasn't she on her back a minute ago?" or "is this a flashback or not?". And if they pop out too much, they'll get bored with the book and not buy the next one.




And if your publisher hasn't moved on from 1918, then who am I to comment?
Insofar as you haven't shown a single valid example of what's different in these rules since 1918, you're apparently nobody to comment. If you want to argue with grown-ups, you had better argue like one.

And there you go. No mercy. You're in the big leagues now, MMI. Come on, try again.

[MMI]

Instant response: phrases can be written without verbs, for example - instant response, showing that a phrase can be used in writing, although you say it can't:-


What an incredible day! (No verb, so not a sentence. Allowed only in speech.)

(And notice that you yourself followed your illustration with two more written phrases.)

Meanwhile, I confess to my inability to see how ones in the sentence you snorted could possibly be confused with the possessive form of the pronoun one without an apostrophe.

I concede that the "rules" require some possessive pronouns other than one do take an apostrophe. I oversimplifed and didn't check. That wasn't bafflegab - it was arrogant laziness. But my mistake makes my case for me: English grammar can be confusing, and for that reason the rules deserve to be flouted. It doesn't have to be possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives. It can be the use of the subjunctive, or when and whether to drop the -m from whom (I bet Strunk requires -m all the time, but it's quite a rarity in 21st Century English). If ship is both feminine and neuter, why is it regarded as poor grammar to refer to the ship as both she and it at the same time? Why is ship feminine anyway: boat isn't? Why is it also acceptable to use they in the 3rd person singular (I wonder it Strunk allows it: it's everywhere in today's language)? These aren't questions on the "fringe" - you object to those (why?). They arise every day in every aspect of writing. Books and books have been written on the idiosyncrasies of the English language, and much disagreement ensues. That couldn't happen if it was all neat and tidy. You have yourself said there is (are?)any number of difficult bits that could make a person's head ache. They're only there because they are useful or because someone who has taken the authority to himself to do so, says so. If they are useful, fine. If they are there because someone says so, then who cares?

My point isn't that there are no rules, or that they are all useless - that's just you belittling me again. It's just that the rules aren't binding on everyone all the time. You can see that I generally adhere to them, but I do not consider myself compelled to. And I don't think you need a qualification to break the rules, be that a doctorate in Lingusitics or a successful publishing record. No-one, no-one at all is qualified to say this rule or that one cannot be broken. Only the sense of what you are trying to say governs how you say it. If you think you can say something better by breaking the rules, go for it.


Sounds like a bitter bit of sour grapes to me.

Maybe it does, but it isn't.

[Clevernick]

Okay, now that I feel you're taking things seriously, I will respond in kind.


Instant response: phrases can be written without verbs, for example - instant response, showing that a phrase can be used in writing, although you say it can't:-


What an incredible day! (No verb, so not a sentence. Allowed only in speech.)

(And notice that you yourself followed your illustration with two more written phrases.)


Right. Hence the differences between the spoken register(s) and several written registers. This is an online discussion forum, and we're both writing in a casual register, much as we'd speak. As someone mentioned in the other forum, first-person narration is in a more casual register as well, and can also have sentence fragments and break other rules. So all you're saying is right.

My being belittling (for which I apologize) was not because you correctly pointed out that sometimes you can break the rules. It's because you were vague about it, and implied that it meant these rules were irrelevant or not useful. Or that they should simply be ignored.

Quite the opposite -- when publishing (which is what I want this forum to be about), these rules are very relevant. Even the outdated ones like who vs. whom. Any decent editor will know exactly what register you're in at any given moment, and when it's appropriate to be conservative and use "whom" correctly. So knowing exactly when to ignore some or all of the rules is key. Your assertion that they can just be ignored whenever you feel like it is simply chaos.



...I oversimplifed and didn't check. That wasn't bafflegab - it was arrogant laziness. But my mistake makes my case for me: English grammar can be confusing, and for that reason the rules deserve to be flouted.


Well, that doesn't follow for me. Hmm. Other examples perhaps. The law is confusing and should therefore be flouted? No. Proper laboratory procedure is confusing and should therefore be ignored? Nope. Pre-flight equipment checklists are confusing and should be skipped? Hmmm. I can't think of any case where having a confusing set of rules is reason to ignore them.

So if that's the connection I've been missing in your argument, I think I'll choose to just disagree right there. To the contrary, the service an editor provides to a writer and a publisher is a fine knowledge of when each rule applies and when it may be broken. That distinction would serve us aspiring writers here in the forum, too.



These aren't questions on the "fringe" - you object to those (why?).

You're oversimplifying again. What I objected to was dismissing the rules because they are both changing and fuzzy at the edges. ALL matters of human language are constantly changing and fuzzy at the edges. In fact it goes much farther than language. You could substitute "rules of civilized behavior" or "rules of civil law" and still be correct to say they're constantly changing and fuzzy at the edges. But I wouldn't suggest flouting them.



My point isn't that there are no rules, or that they are all useless - that's just you belittling me again. It's just that the rules aren't binding on everyone all the time.

With that understood, I'm not trying to lead a forum about "everyone all the time". (my emphasis above) I'm trying to lead a forum about "how to write so a publisher will want to publish you". And in that case, those rules are darned important. Your observations on how they don't bind everyone at all times are correct, but out of place here.


If you think you can say something better by breaking the rules, go for it.

But do it outside your manuscripts, if you please!

[Mad Lews]

Alas poor Nick,
Such a thankless task:) .

Grammar is a pain and the bane of many story tellers. I myself am a consummate abuser of commas. Yes there are rules. It's best if we know them as they help make the language a rich and flexible means of communication.
It is also possible to bend and break those rules and still tell a good tale. It's just that if you do it without purpose you might look a little foolish.
Hey, that's never stopped me.
Perhaps that's why god created editors on the eighth day.

Just a thought

Mad Lews

[Mad Lews]

English is one of the most contradictory and strangest languages in existence in terms of grammar. Quite often the rules do not make sense because it has been garnered from several sources over the years and in a way that was actually illogical because the original scholars who compiled the rules in the 17th century made certain assumptions. The main one they made was that English was a Latinate/Romantic language when really it is a Latinate/Germanic hybrid being derived from both Anglo-saxon and Norman French roots. An example of this is the use of the words Pig and Pork and Cow and Beef to describe the animal and the food that comes from it.



Dear fetishdj,

English is indeed a mongrel child, but it has agility to present ideas that other languages are hard pressed to follow. When searching for the illogical try some eastern language sentence structure.
While the Etiology of certain words can be fascinating the melding of grammar from at least four sources yielded an amazingly fluid and (dare I say) logical set of principles. English is perhaps closest to its Germanic /Flemish roots in vocabulary but without the constraints of a conservative sentence structure. That very flexibility may be the cause of much confusion for people learning it as a second language, but it is a prize worth protecting, even if we do need to learn a few extra rules.

Just the passing ramblings of a

Mad Lews

[Clevernick]

English speakers are the world's worst linguists?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2007/11/20/anglo-saxons-linguists.xml

[Mad Lews]

English speakers are the world's worst linguists?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2007/11/20/anglo-saxons-linguists.xml


Being proudly monolingual is not exactly the same as being a poor linguist.

Besides what dose a preference for French sexual deviations have to do with grammar?:)

A recent EU meeting on defense was attended by a French representative who spoke both French and English (bilingual); A German General who spoke French, German, and English (trilingual); A Belgium host who spoke French, German,Spanish,Flemish,Dutch, and English (multilingual) and a Lt.Col. who graduated with honors from West Point.
He spoke only English so I guess that would makes him an American.
You see it's not just the Brits that are too lazy to learn another tongue.

yours
Mad Lews

[Shwenn]

I myself am a consummate abuser of commas....

+1

My work is always infested with the little fuckers.

[DarkPoet]

One can hardly condemn people for sticking to the easiest western language there is. I'm German, which is more complicated than English, so learning English came quite easy. French is even more complex than German, and it indeed was (and still is) a lot harder for me. If I had been raised English, I'm not sure if I would have been able to get a grasp on one of the other languages. Maybe spoken Mandarin, as it doesn't need much of a grammar or tenses...

[Mad Lews]

This is not about sentence structure but a grammar question none the less.

When is master,mistress capitalized?
I've heard that it should be capital M when refering to a specific individual, such as "Please Master, not in the face."
But when talking about the position or relationship it should be a small m.
The mistresses gathered around the coral. It was always fun to watch a master break the ponies.
Is this the rule? It certainly makes a writers life a little harder. Maybe I should have taken up historic romance novels.

Mad Lews

[Clevernick]

This is not about sentence structure but a grammar question none the less.

When is master,mistress capitalized?
I've heard that it should be capital M when refering to a specific individual, such as "Please Master, not in the face."
But when talking about the position or relationship it should be a small m.
The mistresses gathered around the coral. It was always fun to watch a master break the ponies.


Mad Lews

Good questions, Mad! I looked around and found this handy rule set, in which I think it's safe to consider Master/Mistress a title:



Titles
A person's title is capitalized only when used before the name. When using a capitalized title immediately before the name, try to keep it short. Do not capitalize an occupational designation, only a true title. Department names are in lower case in a person's title.

Right: We met President Cohon.
Right: The president will speak at the dinner.
Right: Vice President for Enrollment William Elliott issued the memo.
Right: Our speaker will be artist William Cooper.

Titles following a person's name should appear in lower case. Use lower case when a title is used alone.

Right: The president of Carnegie Mellon will address the group.
Right: Jeff Bolton, vice president for business and planning and chief financial officer, will host the reception.

Chaired professorships appear in lower case, except for the proper name. University professorships also use lower case.

Right: Andres Cardenes, the Dorothy Richard Starling and Alexander C. Speyer Jr. professor of music, donated his Stradivarius violin to the School of Music in Carnegie Mellon's College of Fine Arts.
Right: Her years of hard work were acknowledged when she earned the rank of university professor.

found at http://www.cmu.edu/styleguide/capitalization.html



Is this the rule? It certainly makes a writers life a little harder. Maybe I should have taken up historic romance novels.

Then you'd still have to worry about capitalizing Squire, Sir, Baron, Duchess, etc... Too bad, hein?

[Shwenn]

Re: the capitalization thing, I want to share some advice that helped me immeasurably.

Do not worry at all about that sort of thing until at least your fourth draft. My creative writing professor at LSU told me that. I started doing it and I immediately liked my writing better.

I've taken it much further than that, even.

First Draft, I don't give a thought to grammar or sentence structure or any of that. I don't even correct the words my spell check has underlined in red.

First Draft is all about creation.
Second Draft gets some attention to grammar.
Third Draft gets a technique once over.
Fourth Draft gets the niggling, petty BS taken care of.
All subsequent drafts are more flagellantism than anything else.

I have a first chapter posted here called The Countess. It's a second draft. I have no idea if this is true but I'd be willing to bet it's 'countess' about half the time and 'Countess' the other half.

[Mad Lews]

Good questions, Mad! I looked around and found this handy rule set, in which I think it's safe to consider Master/Mistress a title:



found at http://www.cmu.edu/styleguide/capitalization.html


Then you'd still have to worry about capitalizing Squire, Sir, Baron, Duchess, etc... Too bad, hein?

Yes a title it is, most often. But on occasion, in this genre at least, the title becomes the proper name by which the sub addresses the individual that is his/her Dom. It in effect becomes a proper name. Or am I just stretching the rule?

Mad

[Clevernick]

Yes a title it is, most often. But on occasion, in this genre at least, the title becomes the proper name by which the sub addresses the individual that is his/her Dom. It in effect becomes a proper name. Or am I just stretching the rule?
Mad

Why does it matter? In any case where the border between title and proper name is blurred, the word is capitalized anyway. At least any case I can think of right now.

The rules above that show non-capitalized versions seem to be at times when there's no danger of anyone considering the title to be a name.

[Clevernick]

Re: the capitalization thing, I want to share some advice that helped me immeasurably.

Do not worry at all about that sort of thing until at least your fourth draft. My creative writing professor at LSU told me that. I started doing it and I immediately liked my writing better.


Good system! Totally in agreement here.

I took a writer's workshop once from someone who later became a moderately successful author. He passed on a set of tips that take your good advice in a direction you may like.

He said, as I recall, that all creativity is a result of two modes, which you could call "accelerator" and "brakes" mode. Typical writing, for example, goes in four phases:

1. Brainstorm (accelerator, don't edit)
2. Cull (brakes, remove ideas that didn't work)
3. Write (accelerator, don't worry about errors)
4. Edit (brakes, worry about nothing but errors)

steps 3 and 4 (and indeed all steps) can be repeated until done.

Writers who are paralyzed or stuck in low-productivity are usually trying to apply accelerators and brakes AT THE SAME TIME, when the whole point of the phases is to separate them. As you can imagine, simultaneous accelerator and brakes works no better in writing than it does in your car.

I have always found this advice helpful.

[Clevernick]

Anything a best-selling author can do, anyone can do.

Strangely, Lynne Truss (of "Eats Shoots and Leaves") made the same tongue-in-cheek observation I did. From Wikipedia:

Lynne Truss[4] observes: "so many highly respected writers observe the splice comma that a rather unfair rule emerges on this one: only do it if you're famous." She cites Samuel Beckett, E. M. Forster, and Somerset Maugham. "Done knowingly by an established writer, the comma splice is effective, poetic, dashing. Done equally knowingly by people who are not published writers, it can look weak or presumptuous. Done ignorantly by ignorant people, it is awful."

There are better, less elitist versions of this rule, I'm sure, but it's a pretty good start. It's a rule to be broken only when you know exactly how and when NOT to break it.

[Shwenn]

Strangely, Lynne Truss (of "Eats Shoots and Leaves") made the same tongue-in-cheek observation I did. From Wikipedia:

Lynne Truss[4] observes: "so many highly respected writers observe the splice comma that a rather unfair rule emerges on this one: only do it if you're famous." She cites Samuel Beckett, E. M. Forster, and Somerset Maugham. "Done knowingly by an established writer, the comma splice is effective, poetic, dashing. Done equally knowingly by people who are not published writers, it can look weak or presumptuous. Done ignorantly by ignorant people, it is awful."

There are better, less elitist versions of this rule, I'm sure, but it's a pretty good start. It's a rule to be broken only when you know exactly how and when NOT to break it.

Okay, now, that really messes up the minds of people who learn almost all their grammar from reading. I didn't think the comman splice thing was even really a rule. I thought it was like splitting infinitives, one of those things nobody actually cares about.

[Clevernick]

Okay, now, that really messes up the minds of people who learn almost all their grammar from reading. I didn't think the comman splice thing was even really a rule. I thought it was like splitting infinitives, one of those things nobody actually cares about.

Yeah, it bothers people. It bothers me, at least, since it looks breathless and weak when I read it. Examples from some other writer:


Getting this over and done with quickly was in everyone's best interests I thought, I could live with the discomfort for the two weeks.

Looks basically unpunctuated and impossible to read aloud. Try:


Getting this over and done with quickly was in everyone's best interests, I thought. I could live with the discomfort for the two weeks.

I'd have to conclude that commas are not periods, and no amount of apathy will make them periods... :)

I, too, get all my grammar knowledge from reading, not from grammar teachers. The teachers just showed me what to call the errors. And yeah, I see them and they pop me right out of the story.

[Mad Lews]

I'd have to conclude that commas are not periods, and no amount of apathy will make them periods... :)



I suspect very few of the ladies are apathetic about periods; Commas on the other hand... ;)


Mad

[Ragoczy]

I can usually get past misplaced or improper punctuation when I'm reading, so long as the writer's meaning is clear. My current pet peeve is writers don't know how to write things like "could have" as a conjunction; I keep seeing things like:

... could of ...
... should of ...
... would of ...

Drives me freakin' nuts! I'm seeing this more and more often in published, ostensibly edited, works.

[MMI]

I've been away: this has moved on without me. But I see the elitism remains.

The ability to change the language remains with its users: mostly ordinary people who speak and write in an uncomplicated way. Forcing a rigid (Latin) structure onto it and maintaining that the rules are logical and immutable is simply wrong. Those rules will all ultimately mutate or disappear, I am sure. It will happen, not by a formal edict from the Masters of the Language (successful authors, I suppose), but by common usage. This may leave publishers with bit of a problem, but they'll cope, don't worry.

[Clevernick]

You speak of elitism as though it's a bad thing. I think it has its place.

When people are studying to do something well (like, say, heart surgery, or writing), it seems to me sensible to ask those who do it best for advice, and then learn from the advice. But that's inherently elitist. See Jimbo Wales vs. Larry Sanger on Wikipedia for elitism and anti-elitism.

If you dislike elitism, then you choose not to ask those who are best at it. You take your wisdom, like Wikipedia, from the masses. Writing is a matter of personal taste, so nobody's going to stop you from punctuating randomly, or single-handedly evolving the language.

But if you ever take up an interest in heart surgery, please tell me where you live so I can avoid that place.

[MMI]

Nothing wrong with being the best, nor with searching it out. There's nothing wrong with avoiding the worst, either.

But "best" is not synonymous with "elite". "Select" or even "elect" are closer in meaning. Chosen because better, perhaps, but possibly chosen for other reasons too. Consider Wall Street, for example, where wealth and contacts speak louder than mere talent. Are those who ran Lehman Bros or AIG the best? They are among the elite. Is the Chairman of HBOS so clever now his bank - created by Royal Charter in the 17th Century - is to be absorbed by an English Joint Stock Bank to save it from bankruptcy? No, he's not; but he's among the elite, and will be rewarded for his failure with shares in the English bank and a brand new job into the bargain. In other words, the elite nuture and promote the elite, not the best. If he were a heart surgeon of a similar aptitude, I would not want him to operate on me.

And what about ... ummm ... Geoffrey Archer. He's sold millions of books, so he qualifies as an arbiter of language by your criterion. Yet no-one would call him a skilled wordsmith: common wordmonger would be the best he could hope for. He could never be accepted as a guardian of our language's integrity. If he were a heart surgeon, he would perform one simple type of operation only, with a few minor developments from time to time. He would never improve, but he would always be among the elite.


======================

Ragoczy,

Why let "should of" worry you - you know what is meant. I remember back in the sixties, I had a girlfriend who once wrote me a letter: "Dear MMI, I know I should of told you last night, but your dumped ... " The grammar was terrible, but I realised I would have to act quickly if I wanted my Sgt Pepper album back.

======================


I feel this debate/argument has run its course, and it's surprising how a simple proposition raised so much ire. Frankly, it proved nothing - Clevernick, I admit you are right, but you must grant my opinions are valid too.

[Mad Lews]

And what about ... ummm ... Geoffrey Archer. He's sold millions of books, so he qualifies as an arbiter of language by your criterion. Yet no-one would call him a skilled wordsmith: common wordmonger would be the best he could hope for. He could never be accepted as a guardian of our language's integrity. If he were a heart surgeon, he would perform one simple type of operation only, with a few minor developments from time to time. He would never improve, but he would always be among the elite.




Dear MMI,

Not to say you're pureeing your metaphors, but there is a difference between language and story telling. Mr. Archer’s success at book sales hardly qualify him as an elite arbitrator of the English language, rather it makes him a popular, perhaps even elite, teller of stories, and a very specific type of story at that.
If you seek populism as your determinant then turn to William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White as the Arbitrator of Language in the USof A, they have undoubtedly sold more copies of books on the subject of grammar and style than any I know of. That would, make them the physicians of our languages integrity, at least in a populist venue.

You’ll be happy to know that the French have a system to end this discussion. The Académie française, founded in 1620 has developed a system to preserve the purity and integrity of the French language. In a truly republican feeling of fraternity all language disputes can be resolved.
The Académie consists of forty members, known as immortels (immortals). New members are elected by the members of the Académie itself. Académicians hold office for life, but they may be removed for misconduct. The body has the task of acting as an official authority on the language; it is charged with publishing an official dictionary of the language.That is how "Television" became a french word back in 1960 ya know...

Yours
Mad Lews

[Clevernick]

Interestingly, I heard that a proposal to the English Parliament about 300 years ago to reform English spelling included the establishment of an Academy somewhat along the lines of the Academie Francaise.

It was apparently this which killed the proposal. Nobody in English Parliament wanted to be seen as adopting a French idea.

[MMI]

Now now ... this got heated enough already without bringing the French into it!