Posted on 07/13/2008 10:14:14 AM PDT by Polarik
I started reading Obama's "Audacity of Hope," to discover more inconsistencies between what he wrote then and what he speaks now.
Only problem is that Obama is one of the worst writers I've ever read. It is so bad that the book should be called, "The Audacity of Ghastly Grammar and Sucky Syntax."
The book is a mess of run-on sentences that are chock-full of errors in grammar, syntax, and punctuation. Run-on sentences was something that my fourth-grade teacher taught our class how to avoid by breaking them into separate sentences.
One would think that, by the time he finished Harvard Law School and became a Law Lecturer, that Obama knows how to use appropriate grammar and syntax. At the very least, Obama has to know even the most basics rules of writing like where to use punctuation (commas, semi-colons, and dashes), conjunctions (and, with), plural nouns, case, separating paragraphs by subject, and, most of all, avoiding run-on sentences.
The answer is [E] NONE OF THE ABOVE.
You be the judge. Here's a paragraph from his "Our Constitution" chapter: an odd title considering how little Obama talks about it.
This paragraph has a total of 195 words, BUT they are all crammed into TWO SENTENCES:
There's a school of thought that sees the Founding Fathers only as hypocrites and the Constitution only as a betrayal of the grand ideals set forth by the Declaration of Independence; that agrees with early abolitionists that the Great Compromise between North and South was a pact with the Devil. Others, representing the safer, more conventional wisdom, that all the constitutional compromise on slavery--the omission of abolitionist sentiments from the original draft of the Declaration, the Three-Fifths Clause and the Fugitive Slace Clause and the Importation Clause, the self-imposed gag rule that the Twenty-fourth Congress would place on all debate regarding the issue of slavery, the very structure of federalism and the Senate--was a necessity, if unfortunate, requirement for the formation of the Union; that, in their silence, the Founders only sought to postpone what they were certain would be slavery's ultimate demise; that the single lapse cannot detract from the genius of the Constitution, which permitted the space for abolitionists to rally and the debate to proceed, and provided the framework by which, after the Civil War had been fought, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments could be passed, and the Union finally perfected.
The entire book is like this abysmal paragraph, and is the reason why I've given up trying to read any more of it.
Now, remember, this abysmal paragraph was not a prepared speech, or one provided by a teleprompter. This is a concerted effort to put thoughts to paper, and one for which Obama had an immense amount of time to craft, to review, and to edit.
The above paragraph is very similar to the way that Obama speaks when he does not have a prepared speech or a telepromter behind which he can hide his ineptness.
How we speak and how we write is a reflection of our acquired knowledge and our thought processes, and for Obama, these processes are as jumbled as a jigsaw puzzle.
They make no sense whatsoever to me, a PhD with 30 years of post-doctoral experience.
Yet, to his leftist supporters, who basically lack any original thoughts of their own, OBama's sh*t souns like silk to their ears.
What a very curious sentence to see from an author critiquing someone else's grammar. It appears to be a fourth-grade error of number.
Glass houses and stones, eh?
eh... I can’t write worth a crap either.... I don’t like obama because he’s a socialist.
There is a good chance that this moron will be the next POTUS.
God bless the USA, but for now, I am happy not to be there.
America is likely to get CHANGE alright. I hope they like it.
How does THAT feel? Have a great day!
Socialist, certainly. More specifically, a neo-Fascist a la Mussolini: he wants control of effectively every means of production, but can’t be bothered with the outright ownership, which would imply his executing some competent maintenance from time to time. Better to have his productive slaves do the maintenance work, right?
One would think that, by the time he finished Harvard Law School and became a Law Lecturer, that Obama knows how to use appropriate grammar and syntax.
Followed by:
At the very least, Obama has to know even the most basics rules of writing like where to use punctuation (commas, semi-colons, and dashes), conjunctions (and, with), plural nouns, case, separating paragraphs by subject, and, most of all, avoiding run-on sentences.
'Basics' should be 'basic', and there should be a comma after "rules of writing". 'With' is NOT a conjunction.
Though he is probably correct about Obama's grammar problems, his entire critique, other than the hilariously funny title suggestion for Obama's book, is an embarrassment.
How racist of you to say that, despite of it being true. You must be a Republican [sic].
What’s even more curious is that this book went completely through the editing/proofing/publishing process at a major publisher (Crown, a division of Random House) without being shaped up. Or maybe it WAS worked on, in which case the original manuscript would have been a real doozie, LOL.
MM
Aside from a couple howlers, little is actually wrong with the grammar. The history is the writer's own and is somewhat out of step with other interpretations.
However, that said, I'm not really here to shoot the messenger; I just wish the messenger would transmit the message a bit more coherently.
The problem with his writing...is that what he is saying has been said so many times before....and it is irrelevant today....unless you’re looking for reparations.
Its curious...ninety percent of the writers who go via a publisher...would have a big cut and rewrite. After reading the example of paragraph from Obama....that wouldn’t have passed any of my university English instructors. They would have graded this a C-minus, with issues.
How true.
Slogans you can dangle a preposition from
‘Run-on sentences’ is a subtopic of grammar.
Kids, don't do drugs.
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