I have long looked for a better way to explain a compositional figure writers use to heighten the effect of a phrase, and I think I finally found it the other day in a work by the poet Mary Oliver. First, though, an example to illustrate it. At the close of the first chapter of …
Category Archives: Thoughts About Writing
Making Smooth the Path
The department of language study which has to do with spelling and punctuation, capitalization and formatting and myriad other miscellaneous but essential matters of presentation is called mechanics. As the indispensable Garner’s Modern American Usage puts it, the mechanics of language constitute the “devices that lend clarity to writing.” Too often we mistake such niceties …
A Written Voice
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 …
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 …