The Thinking Behind Grammar and Style
Stable Ideas and Constant Change
The term classical is difficult to define. We think of it often in contrast to romantic, but that too is hard to make clear. The best explanation I have found to understand the two words is by the American literary critic Irving Babbitt in his Rousseau and Romanticism: “A thing is romantic when it is…
How to Build a Vocabulary
We can study vocabulary by memorizing lists of words (a tedious but sometimes necessary project) and we can assiduously mark the line where we find an unfamiliar word in what we’re reading, later to look up its definition and build a list of our own. These are basic techniques to increase the number of words…
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