Observing the language around us can teach us more than just the rules of grammar. Putting words together inevitably involves what is called diction, the choice and arrangement of words that determines our relationship to our readers. The vocabulary and phrasing we organize can establish a pleasant geniality or a distant authority, each with its …
Author Archives: rultimo
Upcoming Seminars
and a Short Course
Verbs and Adverbs Tuesday, October 27 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Verbs are at the heart of our sentences, and understanding a few basic ideas about them—what is meant by the principal parts of a verb, a direct object, and tense—can go far in helping us to revise our drafts. Adverbs work with verbs, but they …
Keeping a Vocabulary
The stunning technology all around (and sometimes even inside) us has brought with it the suggestion that speed and ease are always better, that getting where we want to go with as few impediments as possible is the standard of work and living we should aspire to achieve, always. To argue the opposite—let’s try to …
Upcoming Short Course:
Reading Closely to Write
Reading Closely to Write Wednesdays, November 11 & 18 and December 2 & 9 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. It’s an open secret that we learn to write by reading. On Wednesday, November 11, I will begin a course of four one-hour sessions called Reading Closely to Write, each of which will examine the sentence structure …
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Reading Closely to Write“
The Power of Structure
I would venture to say that the first sentence of Charles Dickens’ Nobody’s Story will bring most anybody’s attention to a halt: He lived on the bank of a mighty river, broad and deep, which was always silently rolling on to a vast undiscovered ocean. The sentence opens a very short story (only six pages), …