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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
"Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The
adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place."
Or, the edited version:
"Write with nouns and verbs, with adjectives and adverbs. The
adjective has been built that can pull a noun out of a place."
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Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
Ignore uninformed usage rules. The injunction against adjectives and adverbs is up there with the never-use-the-passive-voice one. Why do these rules exist? To mollycoddle grammahooligans? To placate unimaginative writers? No, to facilitate clear communication. But, this may be one of the answers to a question of mine: what is the fascination (in the original etymological sense of the word) with and obsession in finding single words for some concept? The answer may be "so I can use a single word which I have to explain in the end leading to an argument ..." &c., &c.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295 |
To mollycoddle grammahooligans?  I think too that the exagerated wish to find one word for a concept is often a waste of time, if not just irritating. Unless the one word is better, more imaginative (in the sense of procuring an image) than the concept. Ex. The expression 'Indian sit' or 'taylor's sit' (still two words Adj.!  ) is shorter and more to the point than 'sitting legs crossed'or 'sitting cross-legged'. (I think) They have a point. Nouns and verbs work better especially when you're trying to paint a picture with words. Adjectives and adverbs are to nouns and verbs as painting is to stenciling. This comparison is really .... It all depends on which adjective at which place with which noun. Or adverb with which verb. Like in painting the essential is never the what of the means of expression, but how they are used.
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 6
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 6 |
I too love "grammahooligans"! What a great example of clever, clear, succinct writing.
I try to live by the advice I was given years ago: In promulgating your esoteric cogitations, exchew all conglomerations of flatulent garrulity, jejune babblement and asinine affectations. (There's more to the quote, but that's the part I remember.)
Having said that, I must add that the "usage rules" referred to in this thread are not actually rules but mere suggestions. Obviously there is a place for prolixity (Faulkner or Joyce) just as there is a time for conciseness (Hemingway, Ogden Nash).
And never forget Churchil's advice on the "rule" about prepositions at the end of sentences: "that is something up with which I will not put."
Stuart Showalter
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Joined: Aug 2005
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
"that is something up with which I will not put."One normative grammarian whose work I enjoy is Robert Lowth, Bishop of London. In the following quotation, note the mildness of his usage suggestion and the sly insertion of a sentence which breaks it. (What, one asks, ought to be written in a "more solemn and elevated style" than a grammar?) The Preposition is often separated from the Relative which it governs, and joined to the Verb at the end of the Sentence, or of some member of it, as, "Horace is an author, whom I am much delighted with." "The world is too well bred to shock authors with a truth, which generally their booksellers are the first that inform them of." This is an idiom, which our language is strongly inclined to: it prevails in common conversation, and suits very well with the familiar style in writing: but the placing of the Preposition before the Relative is more graceful as well as more perspicuous; and agrees much better with the solemn and elevated style. [Robert Lowth. 1794. A Short Introduction to Grammar, pp. 133f.] And, welcome aboard sshowalter. I hope you enjoy your stay.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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