Precision, concision—confusion. Being precise and concise are hallmarks of good writing, but too much of any good thing turns into its opposite. I saw recently a community board posting on social media similar to this one, and it offers a review exercise for us to figure out just what went wrong. Here is my facsimile …
Category Archives: Thoughts About Writing
Our Imagination
Just what is our imagination? We can’t get very far in any thinking about the arts, including the art of writing, before we find ourselves using the word to refer to some kind of thing we sense is going on in our heads to produce a work others can see or hear or read. But …
Semicolon, Comma, and, Alas, the Dash
How are we to understand the semicolon? The traditional grammars say that “the semicolon is used when the clauses are of the same general nature and contribute to the same general effect, especially if one or more of them contain commas” (Kittredge and Farley, Advanced English Grammar); that it “indicates a wider break in thought …
What Is a Hypothetical?
A curious reply has become more common lately, it seems, in congressional hearings broadcast to the public. A question is posed by a committee member, and a witness replies, that is a hypothetical and I can’t answer that, or that is a hypothetical, and it is not worth discussing because it will never happen. What …
Shaping a Sentence
How a sentence unfolds determines what effect it will have on its readers, and a good measure of the art of writing involves shaping and placing the three basic elements of word, phrase, and clause to compose a suitable order. The questions who is my audience? and why am I writing this? remain the two …