How to improve writing (no. 12 in a series)

It's sad to see a sentence such as this one on official letterhead, in a letter soliciting donations:

Many people assume X covers all the expenses for Y however, the reality is - it cannot.

That's a fused sentence or run-on sentence, two sentences run together with no punctuation between them. Add a comma before however and you get a comma splice, another serious sentence problem. (In formal writing, a comma works to join sentences only if it's followed by a co-ordinating conjunction -- and, but, for, nor, or, so, or yet.) A semicolon, the mark of punctuation often found before such words as however, nevertheless, and therefore, is what’s needed here.

But the writer here has made other mistakes, more difficult to name. Consider the awkwardness of a corrected sentence:

Many people assume X covers all the expenses for Y; however, the reality is - it cannot.

Part of the problem is that three nouns -- expenses, Y, and reality -- fall between it and X, its antecdent. Another problem is the awkward use of a hyphen (which should be a dash anyway) in a very short sentence: "however, the reality is - it cannot." A third problem involves tone: noting what "Many people assume" might be at least slightly insulting. Are you, reader, one of those who labor under this mistaken assumption? A fourth problem: the semicolon-however combination begins to feel mighty ponderous, like the work of a student striving for an unneeded formality of expression.

A better way to make this pitch might go as follows:

It would be great if X could cover the cost of Y. But it can't.

Notice how much more direct the revision is -- from 16 words to 15, from 28 syllables to 16 (half-price!). And now the writer sounds less like someone writing a ponderous essay and more like someone attempting to persuade an audience.

This post is one in a very occasional series devoted to improving stray bits of prose.

» Previous "How to improve writing" posts (via Pinboard)

Writing for thinking

I just came across an essay by Gerald Grow that I'd call required reading for anyone who writes with a computer. Here's an excerpt:

Computers seem to tempt people to substitute writing for thinking. When they write with a computer, instead of rethinking their drafts for purpose, audience, content, strategy, and effectiveness, most untrained writers just keep editing the words they first wrote down. . . . Drawn in by the word processor's ability to facilitate small changes, such writers neglect the larger steps in writing. They compose when they need to be planning, edit when they need to be revising.

Would one guess from the above that this essay was published in 1988? Aside from some details of diction (e.g., "microcomputer"), Grow's essay seems entirely contemporary -- suggesting that the problems of writing with a computer transcend the ever-changing specifics of word-processing technology.

Alas, Grow never suggests a return to paper and pencil for planning and drafting, but he does offer other useful suggestions.

» How Computers Cause Bad Writing

N'allez pas trop vite

Perhaps the most obvious -- and difficult -- lesson Proust offers today's readers can be summed up in a few words: slow down, or, in Proust's original French, "N'allez pas trop vite." When the young British diplomat Harold Nicolson met Proust at a party in 1919, Proust ("white, unshaven, grubby," Nicolson wrote in his diary) asked Nicolson how the post-World War I peace conference worked. Nicolson began with a dull summary -- "we meet at 10:00, there are secretaries…" Proust stopped him: "Vous allez trop vite." So Nicolson began again: "The sham cordiality of it all; the handshakes; the maps; the rustle of papers; the tea in the next room; the macaroons."

The advantage of not going too fast, Mr. de Botton points out, is that the world has a better chance of becoming more interesting in the process. And more interesting is almost always more fun. "The happiness that may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust's therapeutic conception," he says. "It reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything inherently deficient about them."

From a Wall Street Journal piece by Cynthia Crossen, on Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life.

Literary Self-Help: Alain de Botton Finds Modern Wisdom
in the Prose of a Long-Dead Writer (WSJ, subscription required)

Harold Nicolson meets Proust (passage from Peacekeeping, 1919)

Van Dyke Parks speaks

From an interview with Van Dyke Parks in Bandoppler Magazine:

Q. Many younger artists discover your work, absorb it, and allow it to influence their own. Are there any new bands that you enjoy?

A. I don't listen to much fabricated by the American middle-class. I avoid well-heeled and boogie perspective. I'm more into world-beat, with its time-tested rhythms and higher social calling.

Q. What are some words of advice that you would give to young artists today who may be facing Mike Loves of their own who do not understand them and their creations?

A. Dance as if no one's looking. Wrestle things out to bring moment to your own sense of discovery, and make the world a better place. This is no time for whiners. That includes Mike Love.

Well said, Van Dyke.

The second exchange alludes to Mike Love's 1966 resistance to the words and music of SMiLE, and perhaps also to Love's 2005 lawsuit concerning the promotion of the 2004 SMiLE album. For context:

» Bad vibrations, four decades on, as Beach Boys resume squabble
(Guardian Unlimited)

And for the Bandoppler Magazine interview:

» Cycles of the Gentleman Comet: Van Dyke Parks

And for all things Van Dyke Parks:

» vandykeparks.com, Jan Jansen's fan-site

Overheard

"I'll stay in my own private garret, eating my granola and avoiding it all."

Beards (signs of the Times)

The New York Times reports today that beards are back, part of a reaction against "men who look scrubbed, shaved, plucked and waxed." "Men both straight and gay," the article says, "want to feel rough and manly."

Rough and manly, that's me (see photo right).

Priceless quotation:

"It's a nice masculine aesthetic," said Robert Tagliapietra, who with his similarly bearded partner, Jeffrey Costello, designs a collection of pretty silk jersey dresses under the Costello Tagliapietra label. "We both like that aesthetic of New England cabins with antlers on the wall, plaid shirts and a beard."

» Paul Bunyan, Modern-Day Sex Symbol (from the New York Times)

Brava, Professor Entman

From the Associated Press:

A group of University of Memphis law students are passing a petition against a professor who banned laptop computers from her classroom because she considers them a distraction in lectures.

On March 6, Professor June Entman warned her first-year law students by e-mail to bring pens and paper to take notes in class.

"My main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing," Entman said Monday. "The computers interfere with making eye contact. You've got this picket fence between you and the students."

» Law professor bans laptops in class, over student protest

» Wireless or wireless-less (a related blog post)

Homer rules

The Online Computer Library Center, "a worldwide library cooperative," has published a list of the top 1000 titles owned by member libraries. The Iliad and Odyssey both make the top ten, placing sixth and fifth. Homer, you rule.

» OCLC Top 1000

Power-sit

Like father, like daughter. My daughter created a word today:

power-sit \ PAU-er-sit \ verb
:to sit in a pair on one side of a table in a restaurant, leaving the other side empty and the table oddly asymmetrical

power-sitting \ PAU-er-si-ting \ noun
:the act of one who power-sits

Sample sentence: We power-sat and totally intimidated the server.

Will power-sitting routinely intimidate servers? More data is needed.

Related posts
Oveness
Skeptiphobia

Skeptiphobia

"Aren't you going to put skeptiphobia on your blog?"

Thanks for reminding me, Elaine.

It came to me in a dream early this morning:

skeptiphobia \ SKEP-tuh-FO-be-uh \ noun
: fear of skeptics or skepticism

Sample sentence: The speaker's skeptiphobia explains the lack of time for questions from the audience.

The Oxford English Dictionary has no entry for this "word." Google, I suppose, will now have at least one.

Related posts
Oveness
Power-sit