How to Write Good

Latte And Now For That Latte
1

Intentional humor from the U.S. Federal Government - who’d a thunk it?

3 Likes
2
  1. Profanity sucks!

Thanks for the awesome post!

1 Like
3

I can’t decide whether my favorite is #19 (analogy) or #22 (mixed metaphor). :man_shrugging:

4

I’m rather a fan of #15: Be more or less specific.

Back when I was an adjunct teaching an introductory writing course, I felt like a lot of my comments on student papers were some variation of that guidance.

1 Like
5

So should you be “more specific” or “less specific” or sometimes one or the other, or should you only be “roughly specific”? :laughing:

As for “avoid the passive”… I cradle my head in horror. The people who advocate this almost certainly use it many, many of times a day in speech without thinking about it and with no problem whatsoever for their interlocutors! Cue my Swiss student many years ago, who assured me that I was wasting the class’s time on the passive, because, and I quote literally, “the passive is never used in English”!

Mark

6 Likes
6

Time was certainly wasted with that discussion. The irony of their own words was unappreciated. You are thanked for sharing!

Best,
Jim

1 Like
7

I was about to blow a gasket over the article title, until I read the article. :laughing:

I had “Eschew obfuscation” on a bumper sticker at one point in my life.

3 Likes
8

It’s an amusing list, but part of the amusement is that the list itself endorses some hoary old myths, which themselves make plain writing harder to achieve… They’ve thrown in the usual nonsense about split infinitives and final prepositions (both in use for centuries) as well as the passive voice phobia. But I suppose we should be grateful they didn’t include starting a sentence with a conjunction…

However, I don’t understand “50. The adverb always follows the verb.” Where did Safire get that one from?

9

It depended on the student. And, in some cases, which section of the paper we were discussing. I know I had one or two submit papers that needed more specifics in some areas and a lot less in others. :joy:

10

I can well understand that; I was merely amused at the complete ambiguity in the formulation of No. 15.

For @brookter, while I with you all the way on ending a sentence with a preposition, I personally find split infinitives irritating. :slight_smile:

Mark

1 Like
11

I’m not particularly bothered by them, because sometimes they’re the simplest and clearest way to express an idea. But some are downright ugly and should be expunged, of course.

It just amuses me that people write letters to newspapers about split infinitives because that’s what they were taught, when grammarians have been insisting they’re fine for over a hundred years and Shakespeare and others threw them around with abandon. :slight_smile: