While attending Oxford, J.R.R.
Tolkien once stole a city bus and took his friends on a joy ride.
Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC
Carrie
Stephen King’s 1974 novel, Carrie, was rejected by 30
publishers before Doubleday bought it and paid him a $2,500 advance. The
hardcover sold only 13,000 copies, but Signet bought the paperback rights for
$400,000, finally allowing King to quit teaching and become a full-time writer.
Ransack
Ransack carries the image of a house being roughly
disarranged, as might happen when you are frantically searching for something.
This is appropriate given the word's origin. Ransack derives, via Middle English
ransaken, from Old Norse rannsaka; the rann in rannsaka means
"house." The second half of rannsaka is related to an Old English
word, sēcan, meaning "to seek." But our modern use of the word isn't
restricted to houses. You can ransack a drawer, a suitcase, or even the
contents of a book (for information). A now-obsolete frequentative form of
ransack, ransackle, gave us our adjective ramshackle.
Libraries are fighting to preserve your right to borrow e-books
Libraries are fighting to
preserve your right to borrow e-books
By Jessamyn West
Jessamyn West (@jessamyn) is a
librarian who lives in central Vermont. She is on the board of the Vermont
Humanities Council. The views expressed here are hers. Read more opinion on
CNN.
(CNN)Librarians to publishers:
Please take our money. Publishers to librarians: Drop dead.
That's the upshot of Macmillan
publishing's recent decision which represents yet another insult to libraries.
For the first two months after a Macmillan book is published, a library can
only buy one copy, at a discount. After eight weeks, they can purchase
"expiring" e-book copies which need to be re-purchased after two
years or 52 lends. As publishers struggle with the continuing shake-up of their
business models, and work to find practical approaches to managing digital
content in a marketplace overwhelmingly dominated by Amazon, libraries are
being portrayed as a problem, not a solution. Libraries agree there's a problem
-- but we know it's not us.
Public libraries in the United
States purchase a lot of e-books, and circulate e-books a lot. According to the
Public Library Association, electronic material circulation in libraries has
been expanding at a rate of 30% per year; and public libraries offered over 391
million e-books to their patrons in 2017. Those library users also buy books;
over 60% of frequent library users have also bought a book written by an author
they first discovered in a library, according to Pew. Libraries offer free
display space for books in over 16,000 locations nationwide. Even Macmillan
admitsthat "Library reads are currently 45% of our total digital book
reads." But instead of finding a way to work with libraries on an
equitable win-win solution, Macmillan implemented a new and confusing model and
blamed libraries for being successful at encouraging people to read their books.
Libraries don't just pay full price for
e-books -- we pay more than full price. We don't just buy one book -- in most
cases, we buy a lot of books, trying to keep hold lists down to reasonable
numbers. We accept renewable purchasing agreements and limits on e-book
lending, specifically because we understand that publishing is a business, and
that there is value in authors and publishers getting paid for their work. At
the same time, most of us are constrained by budgeting rules and high levels of
reporting transparency about where your money goes. So, we want the terms to be
fair, and we'd prefer a system that wasn't convoluted.
With print materials, book
economics are simple. Once a library buys a book, it can do whatever it wants
with it: lend it, sell it, give it away, loan it to another library so they can
lend it. We're much more restricted when it comes to e-books. To a patron, an
e-book and a print book feel like similar things, just in different formats; to
a library they're very different products. There's no inter-library loan for
e-books. When an e-book is no longer circulating, we can't sell it at a book
sale. When you're spending the public's money, these differences matter.
Library users know that you can
make a copy of a digital file essentially for free. So when we tell them,
"Sorry, there is only one copy of that e-book, and a waitlist of over 200
people," they ask the completely reasonable question, "Why?" In
Macmillan's ideal world, that library patron would get frustrated with the
library and go purchase the e-book instead. And maybe some people will do that.
In the library's ideal world, we'd be able to buy more copies of the book, and
even agree to short-term contracts, if it meant that more people had access to
the books they wanted to read, when they wanted to read them. This was not an
option on the table.
Macmillan did not at all enjoy it
when Amazon removed the "Buy" button from their titles, and yet this
is what they are trying to do to libraries.
Macmillan, complaining that
libraries were "cannibalizing" their sales, tried to spin this move
as one that "ensure[s] that the mission of libraries is supported."
But our mission is not supported by having to spend staff time and energy on
complex per-publisher agreements that inhibit our users' access to the content
they want -- content that we are willing to pay for.
Their solution isn't just
unsupportive, it doesn't even make sense. Allowing a library like the Los
Angeles Public Library (which serves 18 million people) the same number of
initial e-book copies as a rural Vermont library serving 1,200 people smacks of
punishment, not support. And Macmillan's statement, saying that people can just
borrow e-books from any library, betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how
public libraries work. Macmillan isn't the first of the "big five"
publishers to try to tweak their library sales model to try to recoup more
revenue, but they are the first to accuse libraries of being a problem for them
and not a partner.
Steve Potash, the CEO of e-book
digital distributor OverDrive, came out with a statement saying "publishers
and authors are best served by offering multiple, flexible, and reasonable
terms for libraries and schools to lend digital content." OverDrive runs
the Panorama Project, a data-driven research project which researches the
impact of library holdings on, among other things, book sales. He offered some
actual data on Macmillan's claims, and painted a different picture.
The American Library Association
has denounced this model using strong language, but perhaps it's time for
libraries to do more than grumpily go along with whatever gets foisted upon us.
Sixty-four percent of US public libraries are members of consortia for e-book
purchasing. Maybe it's time we got together and decided to spend more of the
public's money with businesses who want to do business with us, who don't just
consider us "a thorny problem," while also not understanding how we
operate.
Lowering barriers to access to
information for all Americans is a public good. Public libraries exist in large
part because they are necessary to a functioning democracy. People who
participate in civics and elect their own legislators require free access to
impartial information so that they can stay informed. Creating barriers to that
access -- barriers that disproportionately affect those who are hardest to
serve -- is a short-sighted move, and highlights the very real conflicts
between capitalism and community.
Well that punishment didn't work.
On July 31st in 1703, Daniel
Defoe (who wrote Robinson Crusoe) was put up on a pillory for public
humiliation for writing a satirical pamphlet. Instead of getting hit by fruit,
he was pelted by flowers.
If you haven't read Franny &Zooey, you really should read it.
“ What happened was, I got the
idea in my head–and I could not get it out–that college was just one more
dopey, inane place in the world dedicated to piling up treasure on earth and
everything. I mean treasure is treasure, for heaven’s sake. What’s the
difference whether the treasure is money, or property, or even culture, or even
just plain knowledge? It all seemed like exactly the same thing to me, if you
take off the wrapping–and it still does! Sometimes I think that knowledge–when
it’s knowledge for knowledge’s sake, is the worst of all. ”
— Franny and Zooey
by J.D. Salinger
Words like Juggernaut, Punch, Calico
Words
like Juggernaut, Punch, Calico and Shampoo were brought by the British Raj
from India to the English language.
Literature is
“Literature
is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.”— Fernando Pessoa; “The Book of
Disquiet”
Is the Internet Making Writing Better?
A new book argues that our richest, most eloquent language is
found online.
By Katy Waldman
July 26, 2019
A common refrain from writers on Twitter is that writing is hard.
Often, this insight is accompanied by the rueful observation that tweeting is
easy. This is, of course, the difference between informal and formal
expression, between language that serves as a loose and intuitive vehicle for
thought and language into which one must wrestle one’s thought like a parent
forcing his squirming kid into a car seat. We’ve long had both formal and
informal modes of speech. The first pours from political orators; the second
winds around friends at a bar. But, as the linguist Gretchen McCulloch reveals
in “Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language,” her
effervescent study of how the digital world is transfiguring English, informal
writing is relatively new. Most writing used to be regulated (or
self-regulated); there were postcards and diary entries, but even those had
standards. It’s only with the rise of the Internet that a truly casual,
willfully ephemeral prose has ascended—and become central to daily life.
McCulloch begins with a taxonomy; different cohorts of users have
different linguistic tells. “Pre Internet People” (think grandparents) tend to
avoid acronyms like “ttyl”—mostly because they don’t know acronyms like “ttyl.”
“Semi Internet People,” who logged on, in the late nineteen-nineties and early
two-thousands, as adults, are more likely to type “LOL” than “lol”; they don’t
view digital conversation as the place for tonal subtlety. “Full Internet
People,” who grew up with AOL Instant Messenger and joined Facebook as young
adults, are fluent in text-speak but perhaps less steeped in the grammar of
newer platforms like Snapchat and WhatsApp. (McCulloch identifies a source of
mutual misunderstanding between Full Internet People, who “infer emotional
meaning” in symbols like the ellipsis, and Semi Internet People, who perceive
such additions as straightforward bits of sentence structure.) Finally, there
are “Post Internet People,” who joined Facebook after, rather than before,
their parents. They’re the ones to watch: the digital avant-garde.
For McCulloch, the primary feat of the digital writer has been to
enlist typography to convey tone of voice. We’ve used technology to “restore
our bodies to writing”: to infuse language with extra-textual meaning, in the
same way that we might wave our hands during a conversation. One general principle
is that communication leans toward the efficient, so any extra markings
(sarcastic tildes, for instance, or a period where a line break will do)
telegraph that there’s more to the message than its literal import. That’s how
the period, in text messaging, earned its passive-aggressive reputation, and
why so many visual flourishes default to implying irony. Similarly, the
expressive lengthening of words like “yayyyy” or “nooo” confers a friendly
intimacy, and technical marks (like the forward slash that ends a command in a
line of code) find new life as social in-jokes (“/rant”). Typography, McCulloch
writes, does not simply conjure the author’s mood. It instructs the reader
about the purpose of the statement by gesturing toward the spirit in which the
statement was conceived.
McCulloch’s project is, at heart, a corrective: she wants to
puncture the belief that the Internet de-civilizes discourse. She brandishes
research that shows that we become more polite as we get better at typing. (As
with online irony, online civility emerges from linguistic superfluity, the
perception that an extra effort has been made, whether through hedges,
honorifics, or more over-all words.) To those who fear that the Twitter era is
eroding our eloquence, McCulloch replies that, in fact, “all our texting and
tweeting is making us better at expressing ourselves in writing.” She cites a
study of nearly a million Russian social-media users, which revealed that
messages in 2008 were less complex than messages in 2016. Through GIFS, emojis,
and the playful repurposing of standard punctuation, McCulloch insists,
Internet natives are bringing an unprecedented delicacy and nuance to bear on
their prose.
To back up this (strong) claim, the book proposes that the
Internet’s informal English actually draws from a variety of registers, using
tools old and new to create finely calibrated washes of meaning. Considering a
real text from a teen-ager’s phone—“aaaaaaaaagh the show tonight shall rock
some serious jam”—McCulloch highlights the archaic “shall” next to the casual
“aaaaaaaaagh.” Such intermixing, she argues, makes Internet-ese “a distinct
genre with its own goals. . . . to accomplish those goals successfully requires
subtly tuned awareness of the full spectrum of the language.” This smart
observation is also destabilizing: if digital English is “informal,” but
imports “formal” locutions, one wonders what the categories are for in the
first place. As the book notes, the quest to make writing more emotionally
precise, more speech-like, is not Internet-specific; during the modernist
movement, writers often broke rules of grammar and punctuation. The language of
James Joyce or E. E. Cummings suggests an alluring parallel to Internet-ese, as
do other twentieth-century innovations (free verse, stream of consciousness,
profanity) that asked an unbuttoned style to represent human interiority.
McCulloch grants that traditional writing has tilled these fields before, and
she does not deny that relatively old-school techniques—vocabulary, syntax—can
load sentences with the exquisite inflections of conversation. Her point,
rather, is that this skill is becoming commonplace. “We no longer accept,” she
writes, “that nuanced writing is the exclusive domain of professionals.”
We may be living through a democratization of refined writing—but
what, exactly, distinguishes Internet-ese from other experimental prose? There
are certain authors—Tao Lin, say—whose fiction feels of the Internet, even in
hardcopy. There are also recognizable, Web-based sensibilities: shouty wit
(Lindy West), prolix familiarity (Choire Sicha), depressive dreaminess (Melissa
Broder). McCulloch discusses a few “extremely online” literary effects, such as
the poetic blankness of minimalist typography, which omits punctuation and
sometimes inserts spaces between letters to evoke a l i e n a t i o n. But she
doesn’t really anatomize Internet voice. (She’s not interested, for instance,
in the “because [noun]” construction that gives the book its title.) This is
probably wise; the inclusion of evanescent fads might only date the work.
Still, I found myself longing for a theory that harmonized the ideas of
informality, irony, variety, and emotion.
McCulloch’s own style is the endearingly nerdy presentation of an
educator. Her enthusiasm works as a sweetener; she knows that students enjoy
both corny jokes and groaning at corny jokes. (The practice of lengthening
words for emphasis, she points out, predates the Internet by “maanyyy years.”)
These chatty lines also reinforce the author’s authority. She’s inside the
clubhouse, sipping Martinis with Philosoraptor and Doge. All language declares
identity, and yet the performative aspect of McCulloch’s writing feels, itself,
Internetty—deeply concerned with inclusion and exclusion. In fact, if there’s one
quality that the book consistently links to digital expression, it’s a
hyper-attunement to in-groups and out-groups, a tribal awareness. The book
offers a chapter on the “atom of internet culture,” the meme, which seduces
users with the promise “of belonging to a community of fellow insiders.” The
cultivating of solidarity can be empowering, but it also casts a shadow. The
meme format, McCulloch writes, with its ability to make “abhorrent beliefs look
appealingly ironic,” thrived during Donald Trump’s candidacy.
A sense of doubleness, of trade-offs, is what is perhaps lacking
from this celebration of Internet style. Yes, emotional precision is more
accessible to the digital writer. (Evoking a mix of outrage and
self-deprecation is easy when you have caps lock.) But sometimes discipline
vivifies thought. Sometimes, to co-opt a modernist principle, difficulty is
good. One wonders whether the eggplant emoji, a shorthand for lust, discourages
less efficient, but more original, expression: Rachel Cusk’s formal restraint,
or the smolder of an Alan Hollinghurst sentence. McCulloch would say it
doesn’t. Maybe that’s true. Her book’s almost political thesis—the more voices,
the better—rebukes both the élitism of traditional grammar snobs and the
cliquishness of, say, Tumblr. It’s a vision of language as one way to make room
for one another.
• Katy Waldman is a
staff writer at The New Yorker.
Do you know all 8 parts of speech in English?
Do you
know all 8 parts of speech in English?
From blog.wordgenius.com
Grade school grammar lessons
drill the parts of speech into students’ brains, but once you’re out of the
classroom it can be hard to remember all the details. You may be a skilled
public speaker, but not know the difference between a subordinating conjunction
and a reflexive pronoun. Never fear — we’re going to break down the eight parts
of speech and how you use them.
Noun
Nouns are one of the first parts
of speech children learn to identify. They’re pretty straightforward: they name
people, places and things. They’re also the workhorses of a sentence and play
many roles. They can be subject, direct object, indirect object, subject
complement, object complement, appositive, or adjective.
Proper nouns designate a specific
name or title: President Obama, Mount Everest, Buckingham Palace. Proper nouns
are always capitalized.
Common nouns are regular,
everyday people, places and things. When talking about things, it can also be
an idea, or intangible concept. Common nouns could be mother, playground, apple
and magic.
You can further identify nouns as
concrete or abstract, plural or singular.
Pronoun
A pronoun is used in place of a
noun, which is called its antecedent. The most commonly-used pronouns are
personal pronouns: she, her, he, him, I, me, you, it, we, us, they and them.
Possessive pronouns indicate
ownership: my, your, its, his, her, our, their and whose.
If you want to emphasize another
noun or pronoun you would use a reflexive pronoun: myself, yourself, himself, herself,
itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.
Relative pronouns introduce a
subordinate clause: that, what, which, who and whom.
And demonstrative pronouns are
identifying or referring to nouns: that, this, these and those. They take the
place of a noun that has already been mentioned.
Verb
Quite simply, a verb expresses an
action or state of being. To form a complete sentence you must have a subject
and a verb. The verb must agree with its subject, so make sure both are either
singular or plural. You can also conjugate a verb to form different tenses. The
verb “to be” breaks down into I am, you are, he/she/it is, they are, we are,
they are. If you want to express “to run,” it can be “I run,” or you can
include a helping verb and say “I am running” or “I can run.”
Adjective
An adjective is what adds color
and description to your sentence. An adjective describes a noun or pronoun. If
you’re answering the questions of which one, what kind, or how many, that’s an
adjective. The RED apple...the OLD man...the GLASS building. The short words,
or articles, “a, an and the” are usually classified as adjectives.
Adverb
Adverbs are similar to
adjectives, but they modify or describe verbs, adjectives or another adverb.
They usually answer questions of when, where, how, why and to what degree. The
boy ran QUICKLY...the teacher shouted LOUDLY...the dog SNEAKILY stole the
treats. You can usually tell its an adverb if it ends in -ly.
Preposition
A preposition is a word placed
before a noun or pronoun to form a prepositional phrase that modifies another
word in the sentence.
The mouse ran UNDER the bookcase.
In this case, “under” is the preposition within the prepositional phrase “under
the bookcase,” modifying how the mouse ran.
The most common prepositions are
up, over, down, under, to and from, but that is by no means complete. The
English language contains hundreds of prepositions.
Conjunction
If you remember your Schoolhouse
Rock (Conjunction Junction, what’s your function?) you know that a conjunction
joins words, phrases and clauses. Coordinating conjunctions link equal
elements: and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet. Subordinating conjunctions are for
comparing things or linking unequal clauses: because, although, while, since.
Interjection
Interjections add spice and
excitement to your language. They are used to express emotion and are often
used with exclamation points. Oh my! Wow! Yay!
When should you use semicolons?
When
should you use semicolons?
From blog.wordgenius.com
Semicolons are one of the most
misunderstood and under-utilized weapons in our grammar arsenal.
Here, we’re going to do our best
to simplify them. You’ll be casually (and correctly) throwing around semicolons
before you know it.
An important thing to understand
about the semicolon is that it’s a non-essential punctuation mark. Unlike the
period and the comma, which serve crucial purposes, the semicolon is a rather
luxurious option; it is used to embellish sentences and allow the writer to
express themselves more meaningfully.
The secret behind the semicolon
actually lies before our eyes. What does a semicolon look like? It appears to
be an amalgamation of a period and a comma. This gives a giant clue on how to
use it — not as a period or a comma, but as something in between.
There are three main ways a
semicolon is used, as well as a couple of “dos” and “don’ts.”
Joining sentences
The first and main use of a
semicolon is connecting two sentences that are part of the same thought.
Crucially, in this use, the two sentences have to be just that: sentences. They
must be independent clauses that are capable of standing on their own.
Example:
The blue whale is the largest
animal to have ever existed. It is an aquatic mammal.
Now, let’s jazz this up with a
semicolon:
The blue whale is the largest
animal to have existed; it is an aquatic mammal.
As we can see, the two thoughts
exist independently of each other (blue whales being big and blue whales being
ocean-dwelling mammals), however, they are intrinsically linked. The semicolon
brings them together quite eloquently.
This brings us to the first
“don’t.” Don’t use a comma to do a semicolon’s job. When two independent
clauses are joined with a comma, this is known in the grammatical world as “a
comma splice,” and it is frowned upon by the grammar elite.
The second “don’t” pertains to
something you might have already spotted. Notice how the capital ‘I’ from the
“It is an aquatic mammal” sentence became lower case when we added the
semicolon? That is because the two sentences were joined into one. Don’t use a
capital letter after a semicolon. The only time to do this is when the
semicolon is followed by a proper noun (a name of a person or place).
The third “don’t” is don’t use a
conjunction after a semicolon. A conjunction (and, or, but, etc.) can join two
sentences together.
Example:
The blue whale is the largest
animal to have ever existed, and it is an aquatic mammal.
The comma and the conjunction are
performing the job of the semicolon, so there is no reason to use both.
Having said this, the only “do”
is somewhat related. Despite conjunctions being inappropriate, conjunctive
adverbs are quite welcome. Adverbs are “how” words, elaborating on how
something is done. A conjunctive adverb can add more richness to a sentence
with a semicolon.
Example:
The blue whale is the largest
animal to have ever existed; interestingly, it is an aquatic mammal.
Detailed lists, or lists that
already include commas
Arguably simpler than the first
use, but far less common, semicolons can be used in certain types of lists.
An easy example would be:
My favorite U.S. cities are New
Orleans, Louisiana; Los Angeles, California; Denver, Colorado and Paris, Texas.
Here, the semicolons are doing
the traditional job of commas, because the commas are already in use in the
city names.
Here is a more complex example:
On my date last night we saw that
new rom-com, accompanied by extra buttery popcorn, Skittles and a Slushie;
after that we somehow had room for a full meal, including salmon linguine and
fudge cake; to finish we stared at the moon all night, which was extra large
for this time of year.
Here, commas are employed to add
detail to the list items, meaning semicolons were needed to divide the list.
The wink ;)
The final, and most fun, use of a
semicolon is the winky face. Grammar traditionalists would have a hard time
accepting this as a genuine use. However, whether they like it or not, language
rules and norms are at the mercy of common usage and habits. The modern reality
is that emoticons and emojis are here to stay.
Fall In Love With the Written Word at These Literary Themed New England Hotels
On vacation, readers and writers
often attempt to settle down with a good book or an unfinished manuscript,
respectively. But time on windy beaches, in swarming cafes, or at hectic
airport lounges is limited. Holidays are busy with distractions, and those
irritating must-see sites always interfere. A few hotels in New England,
however, are perfect literary retreats and ideal for vacationers hoping never
to stray too far from the page or pen. Here are the New England hotels that
most revere the written word.
The Study at Yale, New Haven
Just by staying the night at the
Study at Yale, guests might pore through an author’s oeuvre or write the
perfect opening chapter. After all, if the Holiday Inn Express can run
commercials about guests with no medical experience performing surgery after
one night’s stay, well then waking up to and overlooking one of the country’s
premier universities seems as though it could warrant a similar claim. In any
case, the hotel is still a literary locale with its intellectual clientele,
leather reading chairs, and hand-selected books on the shelves in every study
and suite. 203-503-3900, thestudyatyale.com
Canyon Ranch, Lenox,
Massachusetts
Most people who visit Canyon
Ranch use their time to pause and reflect. It’s a place of vast grounds,
countless workshops on self-study and spirituality, and included spa services.
While all of these items are conducive to that well-needed writer’s getaway, or
to create the conditions for a reader’s sanctuary, timing your visit right
could make it an even more bookish weekend. Among the many speakers presenting
at Canyon Ranch are authors who conduct workshops, readings or literary
discussions in the resort’s high-ceilinged library. Even if no writer is in
residence, the seminars, lectures and grounds offer those kernels that could
launch a project from seed to sprout. 800-742-9000, canyonranch.com
Mayflower Inn & Spa,
Washington
The cliché writing retreat would
include footpaths for thinking, gardens for pondering, vistas framing the very
scene missing from one’s manuscript, and underlit, dark-wooded libraries with
reading lights that mushroom up beside comfortable, deep chairs. The Mayflower
has all of these trappings, yet the beauty of the grounds is the furthest one can
get from hackneyed. More than just having a garden for reflection, the property
has two: the Shakespeare Garden and the American Poets Maze, where one can
wander among quotes and hedges and flowers. While it’s an upcharge for spa
services, the vista through barn-door-size windows of ponds and empty grounds
(which, a century ago, had been home to a private school), the purity of the
white room, the quality books and magazines shelved about, and the recliners
designed to steal a person from doing anything but read rivals any tranquil
space in New England. 866-217-0869, aubergeresorts.com/mayflower
The Press Hotel, Portland, Maine
What had once been the offices of
a local newspaper is now a chic hotel that still holds the spirit of a
newsroom. Images of old front pages wallpaper the hallways, and even the carpet
is wordy, as the wallpaper typeface appears to have dropped entire paragraphs
to the rug. And like leaves fallen from trees, those letters have been swept to
one side, forming alphabetical piles that have fused with the fabric. The hotel
rooms are right for a good read, though they might also inspire one to pen
their first lines of fiction. In the bedside stands, classic novels supplant
the Gideon’s typical offerings, and famous quotes are attached to everything,
from robes to toiletry items. “Don’t skimp on ice. I prefer beautiful, big
squares for my cocktails” — this Jose Andres ode to cubes sits in front of the ice
bucket. Aristotle’s “Change in all things is sweet” is a handy card for guests
requesting housekeeping to swap their bed sheets. Fun with words fills all
spaces: that famous pangram about the quick brown fox and his interactions with
that lazy dog is printed on the back of all in-room desk chairs; the hotel
lobby has a peaceful library and an oversize Scrabble board; and the basement
features a literary-inspired art gallery with a rotating collection. Best are
the few dozen typewriters in the lobby. Most are bolted to the wall as a
permanent exhibit. But a few working ones are set out for guests to punch up a
quick diary entry or a letter about their fine-dining experience at the Union
restaurant, which connects to the lobby and provides kids’ menus inside picture
books like The Hungry Caterpillar. 207-573-2425, thepresshotel.com
Saybrook Point Inn, Old Saybrook
While the harbor and lighthouse
views from the main inn are beautiful enough to stir the words out of any
writer or to satisfy a reader’s need for solace, the guesthouses across the
street make the Saybrook Point Inn a proper bookish escape. The inn’s two
guesthouses, aptly named Tall Tales and Three Stories, are historic
accommodations. In either of the two houses, bookworms can dig into a good story
and wordsmiths can hammer out manuscript pages, as quaint rooms and airy
balconies hark back to another time. Their less bookish companions can also
stay out of their hair, keeping busy at the facilities at the main inn, in the
guesthouses’ game rooms with billiards or chess, in the yard at the bocce
courts, or atop the roof at the fire pits. 860-395-2000, saybrook.com
The Battle of Boston
With some of the country’s best
universities, a riot of privately owned bookstores and a host of literary
events, Boston has always been a city of books. While the bustle of Boston
offers a different atmosphere than the peaceful retreats noted earlier, it is
still a city of literary merit, and many of its hotels have a fondness for
words. The Hotel Commonwealth has books available by request at the front desk.
One guest room is even dubbed the Reading Suite, offering a writer’s table and
housing titles, many of which have been signed by visiting authors. The Ames
Boston allows guests to breakfast in The Library, which, properly, features a
library. Most famous is the Omni Parker House. Long ago, the hotel had hosted
the monthly meetings of the Saturday Club, which was a gathering of important
minds, including some of the 19th century’s most famous poets — Emerson, Thoreau,
Longfellow — and writers, including Hawthorne. Charles Dickens began his first
American reading tour of A Christmas Carol at the Parker House, too. Even some
of the 20th century’s most astute political minds picked up paychecks at the
hotel: Ho Chi Minh had been employed as a baker just before World War I and
Malcolm X bussed tables in the ’40s. Across the river, in Cambridge, sits the
Charles Hotel, occupying one of the most well-read corners of the country, as
it’s hemmed in by Harvard, MIT and the tree-lined banks of the Charles River.
Within a few blocks, one can shop a number of bookstores, many of which host
weekly literary events, like the Harvard Bookstore and Porter Square Books. The
former even has a machine that will print books, manuscripts and lectures (even
those once previously inaccessible) on demand. Besides the lobby library
beneath the staircase, the Charles Hotel’s two restaurants are important
gathering points for literary fans. Like the Saturday Club that had once graced
the Parker House, the Supper Club members, or so we’ll call them, comprise
dozens of Harvard and MIT professors who come to feast and imbibe, and who talk
about big ideas and great books. Listening in on these conversations at the
bar, for instance, with a good book or a ready pen is both a gustatory delight
and some literary meddling.
Writing Matters: 5 Books That Can Help Us Become Better Writers
BY JEFF MINICK
Some writers and teachers among
us, praise be to all of them, are obsessed with writing, grammar, syntax, and
our English language. They argue for concise diction, debate the use of “like”
versus “as,” condemn sloppy usage, and are horrified by misspellings. Recently,
for instance, a reader of one of my book reviews chastised me for spelling Mary
Chesnut of Civil War fame as Chestnut, a mistake that brought an immediate “mea
culpa” from me.
Many bookstores devote several
shelves to these books on writing and composition, ranging from such classics
as Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style” to the recently released
“Dreyer’s “English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style.” (Some
guardians of the language would shoot down “utterly,” arguing redundancy.) In
these works, we find writers who love the English language with the fondness of
children for their mother.
A score or so of these guides share
a home on the shelf above my desk. Robert Hartwell Fiske wrote four of these
volumes: “To the Point”; “The Best Words”; “Silence, Language, and Society”;
and “Elegant English.” Fiske was the founder and editor of Vocabula Review, an
online site devoted to the encouragement of clear expression. I am proud to say
that several of my articles passed Fiske’s discerning eye and appeared on
Vocabula.
“Silence, Language and Society,”
by Robert Hartwell Fiske.
That Fiske was obsessed with
writing and composition is evident in the prepared statement he wrote before
his untimely death from melanoma in 2016:
Robert Hartwell Fiske, owner and
editor of the Vocabula Review since its genesis in September 1999, has died.
Vocabula, I am sorry to say, will die along with him. My apologies. I have
taken great pleasure in getting to know you, my readers. And I will miss you
mightily. I wish you all an auspicious fate, a long-lived life. (Even though
many people pronounce long-lived with a short i sound, the long i is correct.
Long-lived derives from the word life, not the word live.)
Now there, my friends and
readers, is a man who departed this world displaying courage, wit, and class.
Here are five other books I
frequently examine or else have used when teaching composition to students. In
purchasing these books, my reasoning proceeded as follows: If I learned just
one new trick or technique, that advice was worth much more than the few
dollars I’d spent.
Five Winning Resources
“Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch” by
Constance Hale.
Constance Hale’s witty “Vex, Hex,
Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing” reminds writers that verbs are the
engines of a sentence. She begins by quoting the verbs used by Julius Caesar,
Saint Matthew, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Saul Bellow, and even her dog Homer, who
“understands the commands sit, stay, heel, and fetch.” Dull verbs, dull
writing.
Next up are two books by Stephen
Wilbers: “Keys to Great Writing” and “Mastering the Craft of Writing.” The
first I used with upper-level high school students in my final years as a
teacher; the second I bought because of the pleasure the first book delivered.
Stephen Wilbers’s “Keys to Great
Writing.”
Wilbers addresses the
fundamentals for constructing sentences, paragraphs, and essays, all with
exercises designed to underline the lessons taught. In the book “Keys to Great
Writing,” Chapter 4 “Music” with its emphasis on beat, rhythm, and composition,
along with dozens of practical tips, is particularly valuable both to the
novice and the veteran writer.
The fourth edition of “Style: The
Basics of Clarity and Grace,” written by Joseph Williams and revised in this
edition by Gregory Colomb of the University of Virginia, offers excellent
lessons in sentence and paragraph cohesion, emphasis, and concision. On page 58
of my copy, alongside six principles of concision like “Replace a phrase with a
word” and “Change negatives to affirmatives,” a note remains from the days I
taught style in the classroom. “Drum these into students,” the note says. After
reviewing these six points, I hope I beat that drum good and loud.
“Style: The Basics of Clarity and
Grace.”
Gregory Roper’s “The Writer’s
Workshop: Imitating Your Way to Better Writing” harkens back to the practice of
copying the style of other writers, or sometimes literally copying their work,
until you find your own voice and rhythm. My Advanced Placement Composition
students often undertook Roper’s exercises, often with productive but hilarious
effects, by modeling passages from such works as Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s “Poetria
Nova,” “The Ten Commandments” from the book of Deuteronomy, and Charles
Dickens’s “Great Expectations.”
Gregory Roper’s “The Writer’s
Workshop: Imitating Your Way to Better Writing.”
Roper enrolls his readers in a
true writer’s workshop, with many well-constructed exercises, which, for those
willing to pitch in and do the work, can help boost composition skills.
Finally, let me recommend “Style:
The Art of Writing Well.” Here F.L. Lucas, a British classical scholar and
writer who died in 1967, left us a book that bestows the twin pleasures of fine
writing and excellent advice. Though I have not read “Style” cover to cover, I
have returned to it again and again, drawn, in particular, by the charm of
Lucas’s writing and by his stress on “Courtesy to Readers,” that duty owed by
all writers, from the poet to the CEO, to write as clearly and as truthfully as
possible for their readers. Lucas’s self-deprecation, his many examples, his
humor, and his deep knowledge of literature make him a joy to read. A grand
treat, but too advanced for most high school and college students.
“Style: The Art of Writing Well.”
In the Information Age, as some
have labeled the 21st century, our ability to communicate via the written word
is vital. Good writing is important not only in commerce—poor communication
costs businesses billions of dollars per year, according to Inc.—but also in
our personal affairs. Which of us has not sent an email or text we regretted,
or misinterpreted one sent to us by a friend or family member?
Few of us possess the talents of
a Leo Tolstoy or a Jane Austen, but through practice and diligent revision, and
through the study of such books as those reviewed here, all of us can become
better writers.
All the stops
The term, “Pull out all the stops” refers to an Organ - you pull out stops to change the sound of the organ. Pulling out all the stops makes an amazing sound.
"the tremendous excitement of living"
"I
want to infect you with the tremendous excitement of living, because I believe
that you have the strength to bear it." Tennessee Williams, The Selected
Letters: 1920-1945
Writings blocks
You can’t think yourself out of a
writing block; you have to write yourself out of a thinking block.— John Rogers
To be creative means to be
“To be creative means to be in
love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want
to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little
more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.” Osho
Put your heart into it
There is a forgettable film called “A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan 3rd” Most
of the dialogue is standard Hollywood-empty calorie- writing except for one scene
where the writer really put his hart and thoughts into the words:
You know, Ivana, I was thinking. It was kind of a sad thought. I'll meet someone and it won't be you. And I'll fall in love with her...and I'll have kids and a happy family...and then I won't love you like this anymore. And I'll miss it. And I'll miss you. I can't bear not loving you. It will really be totally over between us. And then much later...I'll see you again and you'll have grown older, and I'll be old. And I won't even care. You'll just be a wrinkly old lady with gray hair. And I won't even care anymore. I don't want to not love you.
A flair
In the 14th century, if someone
told you that you had flair (or flayre as it was then commonly spelled), you
might very well take offense. This is because in Middle English flayre meant
"an odor." The word is derived from the Old French verb flairier
("to give off an odor"), which came, in turn, from Late Latin
flagrare, itself an alteration of fragrare. (The English words fragrant and
fragrance also derive from fragrare.) The "odor" sense of flair fell
out of use, but in the 19th century, English speakers once again borrowed flair
from the French—this time (influenced by the Modern French use of the word for
the sense of smell) to indicate a discriminating sense or instinctive
discernment.
A True Story
A 2nd-century Roman novel A
True Story was written by Lucian of Samosata. It is regarded as one of the
first ever works of science fiction ever written and it features explorers
flying to the moon, the first contact with aliens, an interstellar war and the
discovery of a new continent.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)