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Posts: 1812
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Morante)
quote:
The last book which impressed me was Keith Richards "biography".
Yes, I read that a couple of months ago. It’s excellent. He’s a good writer (apparently it’s all his own work — at least, there’s no co-author listed); and far more intelligent than I’d realised.
(I was never more flabbergasted than when I read that Brian Jones had a high IQ: he always struck me as an obnoxious moron).
quote:
an example of "good" English no, an example of real English, si.
I disagree. It’s not standard English, but it easily meets Gowers’s criteria that I stated previously.
Posts: 3497
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to BarkellWH)
Writing well requires discipline, economy, and precision. Over the years I have found that the best guides to writing well are the tried and true: "Elements of Style," by Strunk and White and "On Writing Well," by William Zinsser. Together, they represent the best guide to writing in English with style, elegance, and precision.
And speaking of precision, while I am not a member of the "Grammar Police," I do believe in the importance of precision in writing, and that requires punctuation. Today, one often hears that punctuation doesn't matter as long as one gets one's point across. I beg to defer. Correct punctuation matters a great deal. As an example, I offer the following.
The following sentence appears grammatically correct and the meaning clear, with no ambiguity, wouldn't you say?
"Woman without her man is nothing."
But wait, let's add a couple of punctuation marks and see if the meaning was as clear as we thought it was.
"Woman: without her, man is nothing."
This evening I will raise a copita of jerez to Strunk, White, and Zinsser. They are as relevant today as they were decades ago.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
I am no Stephen King afficianado, though the boy has some great stories.
I listened to his autobiography 'On Writing' and he listed 'Elements of Style' as a key guide. But as I have been listening to a lot of audiobooks ( I run a lot) I am reminded of the advice read aloud regularly. A simple check and often very informative.
Bill Bryson is generally amiable and fun to read. His 'The Mother Tongue' is available in many second hand book shops.
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
The Ernest Gowers quote seems completely based on Orwell's hilarious and willfully awful translation from Eccleiastes in 'Politics and the English Language' . Orwell published half a decade earlier.
Posts: 1812
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)
With the growth of a purer morality among men a stricter code of ethics is imposed by them upon their gods; the stories of the cruelty, deceit and lust of these divine beings are glossed lightly over or flatly rejected as blasphemies, and the old ruffians are set to guard the laws which before they broke.
Posts: 1812
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)
I remain to be convinced about your belief that the Net is proving useful in developing new political avenues or strategies. All I’ve noticed it do is to provide an outlet to the kind of people everyone avoids in pubs…
Dick Gaughan, uk.music.folk newsgroup
UPDATE
Oh, brother. Do I have to refer to him as Richard Gaughan? Whoever wrote this software needs to get a grip.
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen
I remain to be convinced about your belief that the Net is proving useful in developing new political avenues or strategies. All I’ve noticed it do is to provide an outlet to the kind of people everyone avoids in pubs…
Dick Gaughan, uk.music.folk newsgroup
UPDATE
Oh, Brother. Do I have to refer to him as Richard Gaughan? Whoever wrote this software needs to get a grip.
Posts: 1812
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)
My earliest memory of my dad is probably of him somewhere in a garden covered in dirt, somewhere hot, a tropical garden, in jeans, khakis, covered in dirt just continuously planting trees. I think that’s what I thought he did for the first seven years of my life. I was completely unaware that he had anything to do with music. I came home one day from school […] and I freaked out on my dad: ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were in The Beatles?’ And he said, ‘Oh, sorry. Probably should have told you that.’
Posts: 1812
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)
quote:
The Ernest Gowers quote seems completely based on Orwell's hilarious and willfully awful translation from Eccleiastes in 'Politics and the English Language'.
I must read that again, thanks for the reminder. It’s been 50 years.
Posts: 1812
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)
Captain W.E. Johns (creator of Biggles) on the dangers of flying:
When you are flying, everything is all right or it is not all right. If it is all right there is no need to worry. If it is not all right one of two things will happen. Either you will crash or you will not crash. If you do not crash there is no need to worry. If you do crash one of two things is certain. Either you will be injured or you will not be injured. If you are not injured there is no need to worry. If you are injured one of two things is certain. Either you will recover or you will not recover. If you recover there is no need to worry. If you don’t recover you can’t worry.
Posts: 3497
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)
quote:
Am I the only person on this thread who still enjoys fiction.
I have in my library (yes, actual bound books, not a Kindle or a Nook) all of Graham Greene's novels and short story collection. Additionally, I have always enjoyed and keep Lawrence Durrell's novels, particularly "The Alexandria Quartet." Good espionage novels by John LeCarre, Alan Furst, and Eric Ambler. The short stories of Somerset Maugham, particularly those set in Malaya and the Far East.
For entertaining and thought-provoking reading, however, nothing beats the short stories of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. His stories, which center on appearance vs. reality, the doppelganger, mirrors, labyrinths, infinite libraries, alephs, as well as gauchos and knifefighters, are a real treat. I re-read them about every six or seven years and enjoy them as much as I did the first time, many years ago. If I had one book to take with me alone on a desert island, it would be the collected stories of Jorge Luis Borges.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
Posts: 3488
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)
quote:
ORIGINAL: guitarbuddha
Am I the only person on this thread who still enjoys fiction.
Hammett's "The Thin Man" lies on the side table, ready to be picked up next.
Meanwhile it's non-fiction.
Recently I very much enjoyed the second of Hilary Mantel's historical Thomas Cromwell novels, "Bring Up the Bodies". I sought it out after reading the first, "Wolf Hall" about Master Secretary Cromwell's role in the rise of Anne Boleyn.
Mantel does a marvelous job of imagining and portraying the responses of people, otherwise like you and me, during the reign of Henry VIII. One thinks of the applicability to some of today's regimes, with their ever shifting balance between formal adherence to law and absolute personal despotism.
Posts: 6447
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to BarkellWH)
I adored "A Handful of Dust" and other stories by Evelyn Waugh. Stephen King was a master in his prime e.g. The Stand and The Shining.
Sadly, I had to study this kind of stuff at school:
quote:
This Chaunteclere stood highe upon his toes, Strecching his necke, and held his eyen close, And gan to crowe lowde for the nonce; And Dan Russél the fox stert up at once, And by the throte caughte Chaunteclere, And on his bak toward the woode him bere. For yit was there no man that him espied. O desteny, that maist not be defied! Allas, that Chaunteclere flew fro the beames! Allas, his wif that rekkèd not of dremis! And on a Friday fel al this meschaunce. O Venus, that art goddesse of pleasaúnce, Since that thy servant was this Chaunteclere, And in thy service ever did his powere, More for delit, than the world to multiplie, Why woldst thou suffre him on thy day to dye? O Gaufred, dere mayster soverayn, That, when the worthy king Richard was slayn With shot, compleynedist of his deth so sore, Why had I nought thy cunning and thy lore, The Friday for to chiden, as did ye? (For on a Friday sothly slayn was he.)
- Chaucer
quote:
In the diminishing daylight they went along the level roadway through the meads, which stretched away into gray miles, and were backed in the extreme edge of distance by the swarthy and abrupt slopes of Egdon Heath. On its summit stood clumps and stretches of fir-trees, whose notched tips appeared like battlemented towers crowning black-fronted castles of enchantment.
They were so absorbed in the sense of being close to each other that they did not begin talking for a long while, the silence being broken only by the clucking of the milk in the tall cans behind them. The lane they followed was so solitary that the hazel nuts had remained on the boughs till they slipped from their shells, and the blackberries hung in heavy clusters. Every now and then Angel would fling the lash of his whip round one of these, pluck it off, and give it to his companion.
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Escribano)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Escribano
I adored "A Handful of Dust" and other stories by Evelyn Waugh. Stephen King was a master in his prime e.g. The Stand and The Shining.
You know I never got round to a handful of dust. 'Decline and Fall' and 'Vile Bodies' I certainly enjoyed. You should check out Aldous Huxley's 'Point Counterpoint' it is even more savegely cruel and accurate in it's depiction of hapless amalgams of the authors unfortunate acquaintances.
I found it all pretty hilarious till around page thirty where I strode onto the stage to a chorus of raspberries. Quite unnerving really when one finds oneself savagely parodied by an author dead on our birthday.
And to learn that one is an absurd cliche....... You know I never quite had the courage to finish it.
Try some early Huxley for that cutting Waugh meanness. I think they moved in the same social circles.
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Escribano)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Escribano
Stephen King was a master in his prime e.g. The Stand and The Shining.
Yeah I loved 'The Talisman' co-written by Peter Straub. I was maybe ten and into fantasy novels in a big way. I loved the way they mashed up 'Of Mice And Men'(including one scene almost verbatim) and 'The Wizard of Oz' and Lewiss Carol and just everything else.
But with the stand I thought he set a bad precedent. Getting drunk and writing himself into a corner (did he foresee the internet age ?) and then giving in and having the hand of god come down in the fifth or seventh act and fix things for him. I nearly threw the dark half across the room when he did it again.
Then I didn't read him again for, good grief, 23 years. Then I say him chatting on youtube and thought lets give this guy another chance.
He is a pretty damn engaging reader and I thoroughly enjoyed his memoir.
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)
For funnies anyone tried David Sedaris ?
Lorna and I saw him do a reading in Edinburgh either last year or the year before and it was just bloody terrific.
His recent prose is brilliant, lean and always self-aware(recently anyway) but to hear him read live was a real treat. I find myself trying to hear his voice in my head as I read and failing badly.
The Portuguese thing was ahead of its time. Try out some online translation software.
Strikes me as crazy that people expect transcription software to be available to them. The written word is so much more definite, and translation from one language to another by automatic means still not great.
But expecting it to pick out a single instrument from a recording and produce a passable score and fingerings. Well it won't be soon. Even on guitar pro you type in the tab and it makes a backside of all accidentals in the grown up part.
Posts: 3488
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Escribano)
Samuel Johnson:
"I would say to Robertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils:'Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.'"
"I would say to Robertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils:'Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.'"
RNJ
Yay!!!
Terrific Richard, thats a new one for me. Although whatever it was Johnson had against porridge is a mystery to me.
Posts: 3488
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWHl
Writing well requires discipline, economy, and precision.
Samuel Johnson, the single handed author of the first comprehensive English dictionary, was a stickler for precision in speech as well as writing. He was also known for his slovenly personal habits.
Riding through the countryside in a coach, a genteel lady was so offended that she spoke up.
"Sir," she said to Johnson, "you smell."
"No, madam, you smell," replied Johnson. "I stink."
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