Posted on 01/24/2017 7:38:38 PM PST by Dan Baker
Can I mambo dogface to the banana patch.
Only if you want to!
How to communicate effectively as a liberal:
1) Yell loudly. Nothing gets your point across like yelling
2) Use profanity. You elevate your apparent intelligence with frequent profanity and vulgarity.
3) Lie. No one will check your facts.
4) Use absolutes. If someone does not agree with you that means they hate everything
5) Always call them racists.
6) End your arguments with “NAZI!”
Nice post. I’m an early adopter of the Flesch principles and adherent to the Reading Ease statistics in Microsoft Word, which uses algorithms to give you quick reports on word count, word length, sentence length, use of the passive, and so on. I’ve published some books via Writer’s Digest, including creative ways to editor your writing by exploiting this algorithm and more.
Remember my handle. We’ll talk in private here, if you like, bc of this shared interest. Be happy to give you some advice about where the landmines are in the readability scales.
One of the things I’m researching here on FR and other sites that offer 100-word excerpts of stories on the landing page is this: Many of these excerpts don’t fulfill the promise of the headline in the first 100 words. Sometimes not even in the larger excerpt at the FR link to the larger excerpt. Boy, that’s annoying.
On the other hand, the WSJ excerpts before the paywall always give you the nut of the story.
Elaine wants to know if exclamation points are a good thing!!
Will never talk me into using “&”!!!!!!!
Bookmark for tomorrow
BFL...
flr
I think your audience is new or young writers. Many of those rules can and should be broken by writers with more of a command of the English language. Many are welcome common sense, but many oversimplify and dumb the writing down too much. I would hate to be so limited.
I have homeschooled two high school boys and they needed more ways to develop a sentence or paragraph than how to cut out verbosity or keep things simple. They needed more commas, more complex vocabulary. Keeping things straightforward and simple is key, but if that is all that is in your repertoire when heading for college, you will appear less intelligent.
In a Roberto Benigni film set in Renaissance Florence in the days of Savonarola, Benigni is writing something and asks someone, “Are exclamation points a sin? Everything’s a sin with these people.”
There’s really only one rule: Be the reader.
Follow his thoughts, but one step ahead of him.
The NYT has some good writers. When you find the material interesting, chances are it is well written.
bookmark
I don't let that get in my way. If I like an article enough to post an excerpt as a new thread, I'll scan through it to find the heart of the piece, then carve that out to post here.
Too many writers have verbosis, and just love to read their own rambling thoughts. It sometimes takes them several paragraphs to get past the mental masturbation and interminable background setups, to get to the gist of what the article's about.
FR only allows a 300 word excerpt (from most news sources), so I'm very picky about what parts of an article I post.
Bkmk
All great suggestions.
L
#26 Rule is to say “I” many many many times in every speech you give......
Me too.
7. If you can’t say something nice... Say something mean.
HOW TO WRITE GOOD
(William Safire and Frank LaPosta Visco)
1. A writer must not shift your point of view.
2. Always pick on the correct idiom.
3. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
4. Always be sure to finish what
5. Avoid alliteration. Always.
6. Avoid archaeic spellings.
7. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
8. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
9. Be more or less specific.
10. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
11. Contractions aren’t necessary.
12. Do not use hyperbole; not one in a million can do it effectively.
13. Don’t indulge in sesquipedalian lexicological constructions.
14. Don’t never use no double negatives.
15. Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!
16. Don’t repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
17. Don’t use commas, that, are not, necessary.
18. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
19. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
20. Employ the vernacular.
21. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
22. Eschew obfuscation.
23. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
24. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
25. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
26. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
27. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
28. Hopefully, you will use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
29. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
30. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
31. It behooves you to avoid archaic expressions.
32. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
33. Never use a big word when a diminutive alternative would suffice.
34. No sentence fragments.
35. One should never generalize.
36. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
37. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
38. Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.
39. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of ten or more words, to their antecedents.
40. Placing a comma between subject and predicate, is not correct.
41. Poofread carefully to see if you any words out.
42. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
43. Profanity sucks.
44. Subject and verb always has to agree.
45. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
46. The adverb always follows the verb.
47. The passive voice is to be avoided.
48. Understatement is always best.
49. Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.
50. Use youre spell chekker to avoid mispeling and to catch typograhpical errers.
51. Who needs rhetorical questions?
52. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
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