We forget too often that the written word is merely (merely!) an attempt to represent the spoken word in the absence of a human presence before us. The technique of writing includes the device of punctuation to replicate the pulsations of breath which bring life to that presence, and that is why there is some …
Category Archives: Thoughts About Writing
Getting Used to Used To
A friend of mine asked me the other day to explain the difference between I used to run every morning and I am used to running every morning. She understood, of course, the different meaning each had, but she wanted to know how the grammatical structure changed in order to change the meaning so clearly. …
Study, Real and Ideal
In order for us, students of any age, to find and keep the energy we need to stay at our task, we must know the purpose we are working for. This is decidedly true in the study of language, whether we are learning a new one or learning again the rules and graces of our …
Clear and Stable
The summer months make clear what the winter ones won’t: nothing stays the same. The sun that rose between the branches outside my window weeks ago now rises farther to the south, and the view is no longer the same for me. The leaves on that same tree flutter in even the calmest breeze, and …
Stop It
There is a fine old classic work on punctuation entitled Mind the Stop by G. V. Carey, published in Britain in 1939. A stop is a Briticism for any of the marks of punctuation (comma, semicolon, colon, and period) which intend to pause the reader to some degree at some specific point in a sentence. …