RE: Examples of good English.

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Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours.

Grover Cleveland, 1905

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 29 2013 22:53:47

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

Lawyer: “Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?”
Witness: “No.”
Lawyer: “Did you check for blood pressure?”
Witness: “No.”
Lawyer: “Did you check for breathing?”
Witness: “No.”
Lawyer: “So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?”
Witness: “No.”
Lawyer: “How can you be so sure, Doctor?”
Witness: “Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.”
Lawyer: “But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?”
Witness: “Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.”

Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyers journal, 2000

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 29 2013 22:57:22

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

I am as much for government by consent as any man. But where shall we find consent?

Oliver Cromwell

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 29 2013 22:58:42

guitarbuddha

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Paul Magnussen)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen

Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours.

Grover Cleveland, 1905

Thanks Paul for another excellent example of English debased in precisely the way Orwell loathed.

Replace woman for either serf, black, Mexican or (until surprisingly recently,even in Britain) child. Then with only the slightest alteration the statement would fly straight and clear to the dark dark heart of some grateful audience.

The Mark Twain of earlier. To say that you have taught well but noone learned is like saying that you sold well but nobody bought...... but to sell is not necessarily to teach. And aye there's the rub !!!

Which brings us to Cromwell.

Cromwell 'But where will we find consent ?'
Chomsky 'Nowhere, consent is manufactured.' (please forgive the liberty !!)

For a thorough investigation of this I recommend Orwell's essay on the emerging tabloid media which can be found in his Penguin anthology.

D.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 29 2013 23:17:05

guitarbuddha

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

But hey guys, is English really best represented by glib putdowns and political invective ?

I sought to set a tone with this.

'The quality of mercy is not strained.'

Examples of good English was maybe too vague.

How about more examples of goodness in English.

Or this

' I am more impressed by what moves me than moved by that which impresses me.' (attribution welcome).

On music I believe and much better than the facile 'Too many notes !'

D.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 29 2013 23:22:46

guitarbuddha

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

One by Alasdair Gray (we speak English in Scotland too).

'Humanity is the pie which bakes and eats itself.'

To which I like to add 'Society the crust and art the gravy'.

D.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 29 2013 23:24:36

guitarbuddha

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Paul Magnussen)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen

Sir Thomas Beecham, on harpsichords:

To me, the harpsichord sounds like two skeletons copulating on a tin roof.

I like that.

I once attempted a duet with a pianist, I was on guitar.

It sounded like a mouse trying to rape an elephant.

D.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 29 2013 23:46:28

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 0:09:20

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

George Orwell, Preface to Animal Farm

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 0:10:43

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech.

Dr. Kathleen Dixon (Director of Women’s Studies, Bowling Green State University, Ohio)

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 0:12:46

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

Everything that can be invented has been invented.

Charles H. Duell (Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents), 1899

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 0:14:42

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

“All of our menu items can be part of a balanced, active lifestyle,” the McDonald’s spokesperson told me. To my mind, the Big Mac could only be part of the balanced, active lifestyle of a tree sloth.

John Feffer, Alternet

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 0:19:34

guitarbuddha

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Paul Magnussen)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen

“All of our menu items can be part of a balanced, active lifestyle,”

John Feffer, Alternet

That is a terrific piece of humbug. You could replace 'menu items' with heroin,socks,banjo's,earwax.......and still you wouldn't be lying.

D.

And in a spirit of fairness

Churchill in an exchange.

Young man (after seeing Churchill leave the bathroom without washing his hands): At Eton they taught us to wash our hands after using the toilet.
Churchill: At Harrow they taught us not to piss on our hands.

I think of this one when I am tempted to congratulate myself after making an apology

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 0:28:04

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

quote:

That is a terrific piece of humbug. You could replace 'menu items' with heroin,socks,banjo's,earwax.......and still you wouldn't be lying.

OK then, since you prefer to be serious: how about this one?

It is often stated that we owe much to originality, creativity and imaginative innovation, and value it highly; I suggest that only the first part of the sentence is true. We owe much to creativity, but we seem to value it only in hindsight. There are many horrifying stories in the history of science and art about the fate of the innovator; I have mentioned some of them already, like that of Semmelweiss. But that is all history, readers may say; nowadays we worship the great minds who create new theories, new works of art, new concepts. This has not been my experience. The major grant-giving bodies tend to support routine work that can safely be predicted to have positive outcomes; they shy away from true novelty. Novelty emerges from an individual mind; when it is judged by a committee, orthodoxy will usually prevail.

H.J. Eysenck, Genius

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 0:35:32

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one’s work seriously and taking one’s self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.

Dame Margot Fonteyn

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 0:39:09

guitarbuddha

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Paul Magnussen)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen

The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one’s work seriously and taking one’s self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.

Dame Margot Fonteyn

Good grief. I shall place that on a shelf facing my bed.

D.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 0:42:34

guitarbuddha

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Paul Magnussen)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen

quote:

That is a terrific piece of humbug. You could replace 'menu items' with heroin,socks,banjo's,earwax.......and still you wouldn't be lying.

OK then, since you prefer to be serious: how about this one?

It is often stated that we owe much to originality, creativity and imaginative innovation, and value it highly; I suggest that only the first part of the sentence is true. We owe much to creativity, but we seem to value it only in hindsight. There are many horrifying stories in the history of science and art about the fate of the innovator; I have mentioned some of them already, like that of Semmelweiss. But that is all history, readers may say; nowadays we worship the great minds who create new theories, new works of art, new concepts. This has not been my experience. The major grant-giving bodies tend to support routine work that can safely be predicted to have positive outcomes; they shy away from true novelty. Novelty emerges from an individual mind; when it is judged by a committee, orthodoxy will usually prevail.

H.J. Eysenck, Genius

Another worthy musing.

It is too easy to say that a clique/committee is the enemy of the artist. They are also often the enemy of their own growth.

Often people band together and share favours based on the ability to support each other in foolishness, shallowness, meanness and intellectual laziness masquerading as orthodoxy. And they begin to believe that their proximity to this orthodoxy is in fact evidence in itself of superiority. But it is hard to stay creative on that path. For if one believes oneself to be 'finished' where is the originality.

Like you said Paul, better to appear a splendid fellow.

Never challenge a man who might get you work.

D.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 0:55:41

Richard Jernigan

Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

At a meeting at Kwajalein, the room was nearly full, about fifty people waiting for mission planning presentations to begin. i was seated in my usual spot on the front row. A young computer programmer who worked for MIT Lincoln Laboratory came in. She was bright and pretty. One of the younger guys spoke up, "There's a seat here."

She answered, "Thanks, i'm going to sit next to Richard. Maybe some of that intelligence will rub off on me."

I assumed she was avoiding showing favoritism among potential suitors, and was currying favor with an authority figure, but it occurred to me to reply,

"All of the planet's serious problems are due to the over-development of the human cerebral cortex."

Of all the things I have said during a long and talkative life, it's the only one I find the least bit memorable. We admire facility, of which there is a pretty good supply, but wisdom is scarce, and scarcely appreciated.

RNJ

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 3:35:37

Ruphus

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Joined: Nov. 18 2010

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Paul Magnussen)

Once again, well said, Richard!

And the maybe best example of this could be the youth mania in the employment sector that is on now for over 3 decades or so.

Somehow the misconception sneaked into industtrial employing standards that the fast-thinking ability of the young ( peaking at 18) to present practical value.

( I think this started in USA and flooded much of the world from there.)
From there graduates had to be yoinger and younger to be preferred by staff managers, and this poliicy has contributed a lot to the inefficiency and short-sighted outlays of today.

Intelligence is just a raw material if you want. Something that can be engaged well or completely fail.
An IQ of 120 or more won´t really yield usefully if it is of an immature, inexperienced, unsocial and basically uneducated mind notwithstanding whatever university exam.

Yet, despite all the havoc such hollow intellgience has caused to the society there is little realisation of it.
We still have degraded the elderly to useless burden that will be disposed as soon and cheaply as possible.

Only very gradually is the insight returning ( mainly in Scandinavian countries) how useful wisdom and experience can be. Companys who changed their hiring policies benefit highly from the new situation on all levels.

And it shows that slower thinking like with old chaps is no handicap at all, because speed is not relevant, but sense is.

The elderlies´ respected position in indigene societies over millions of years and in the grand civilisations until only decades ago, was there because of wisdom used to stand the test after all.

Just mentioning the obvious.

Ruphus

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 8:42:49

estebanana

Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

quote:

But hey guys, is English really best represented by glib putdowns and political invective ?

Yes, what about literature? These are great witticisms ( and some not so enlightened thoughts) and fast comebacks in English, but what is great English?

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 9:12:21

guitarbuddha

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Richard Jernigan)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan

We admire facility, of which there is a pretty good supply, but wisdom is scarce, and scarcely appreciated.

RNJ

Hey Richard I like that last bit much much more than the quote. Maybe wisdom, like great art escapes from us unawares when we strive for sincerity. The other ....were you reading a lot of Asimov a the time ?

Taking pride in the things which escape when one pushes is.......very strange

'

But do not let me seem flippant, nowhere more than in guitar music is there too much admiration of facility and so little for wisdom. Musicality is a good word for wisdom in music. How often is it discussed ? And is it discussed with wisdom ?

D.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 10:26:49

guitarbuddha

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to estebanana)

quote:

ORIGINAL: estebanana

quote:

But hey guys, is English really best represented by glib putdowns and political invective ?

Yes, what about literature? These are great witticisms ( and some not so enlightened thoughts) and fast comebacks in English, but what is great English?

Any man in an honest moment ......sharing.

D.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 10:30:38

guitarbuddha

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Joined: Jan. 4 2007

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

Has anyone read Kazuo Ishiguro's the unconsoled ?

Kind of contradicts what I said above. It is a novel of breathtaking facetiousness and willfully frustrates the reader at each and every single turn. Yet in the end I found it very very moving.

Like all of Ishiguro's work it is about an unreliable narrator struggling with guilt and regret. Cant imagine why I liked it.

D.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 10:53:37

Richard Jernigan

Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

quote:

ORIGINAL: guitarbuddha

Hey Richard I like that last bit much much more than the quote. Maybe wisdom, like great art escapes from us unawares when we strive for sincerity. The other ....were you reading a lot of Asimov a the time ?

Taking pride in the things which escape when one pushes is.......very strange

It had been decades since I picked up a book by Asimov.

I had lived for years within a day's sailing time of an environment which the tiny population still had not the power to seriously modify. I lived on a high tech military base loaded with the latest technology, golf courses, manicured lawns, airports, industrialized harbors, the whole air-conditioned American shtick. A few times a year I visited the great howling metropolises of modernism, Bangkok, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Boston, Washington...did you know that Bangkok has more buildings over 30 meters high than any U.S. city except New York?

The group was well suffused with intellectual pride: Engineers, technicians, computer scientists from places like MIT, Stanford, Georgia Tech..the prime producers of tech talent.

I instantly felt that some sort of falsely modest rejoinder to the young woman's flattery was required by the group's pretended egalitarianism. But I was a little surprised when what came out of my mouth was actually worth saying.

RNJ

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 15:23:52

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

quote:

But hey guys, is English really best represented by glib putdowns and political invective ?

OK, glib putdowns and political invective are out. Back to good English.

Any E1Ls familiar with Sir Ernest Gowers's The Complete Plain Words? That’s the one of the best guides to good English I’ve ever come across (the other being Fowler’s Modern English Usage).

Here is a quotation from a published academic study, with Gowers’s comment:

--------------------

'Although certain broad zonational patterns are discernible in the geographical distribution of animals as well as in those of soil and vegetation, the mobility of animals and, in the case of some, seasonal altitudinal migrations means that the zonation becomes indistinct.'

I have corrected both grammar and punctuation. It seems to tell us that that animals move about more than plants do, and that when they have moved they are not in the same place as before.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 16:10:52

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)

And a random example from Fowler:

EPOCH, EPOCH-MAKING. Under TIME, the meaning of the word "epoch" is explained. If an epoch were made every time we are told that a discovery is epoch-making, our bewildered state of ceaseless transition from the thousands of eras we were in yesterday to the different thousands we were in today would be pitiful indeed. But luckily the word is a blank cartridge, meant only to startle, and not to carry the bullet of conviction.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 16:13:56

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Paul Magnussen)

And Gowers quotes with approval an essay from a 10-year-old child, saying "The writer has something to say and said it as clearly as he could".

I submit that the same applies to the writer of this Amazon review of A Separate Peace by John Knowles:

--------------------

Word Vomit

I was forced to read this book when I was in grade school. That was over 12 years ago, I have traveled to many foreign lands and read many books and this one sticks with me as one of the worst ever. It was so BORING! I even read the sequel for extra credit on my own free will and it was just as BORING! The author has no verbal skills and an advertisement for cat litter is more exciting to read than this heap of garbage.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 16:22:35

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Paul Magnussen)

And this review of the same:

--------------------

Like many other helpless high school students, my English teacher forced me to read this book. It is the most pretentious piece of... words are insufficient to express my disgust. Why must we read garbage like this in school instead of truly great works by authors such as Hemingway and Twain? Answer: spineless teachers and parents. Screw ’em all.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 16:23:34

Morante

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Joined: Nov. 21 2010

RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Paul Magnussen)

Simone de Beauvoir is worth reading, or at least impressed me when I was younger. The last book which impressed me was Keith Richards "biography". Unfortunately, I had to read the Spanish translation, because my wife wanted to read it too. Surely I missed a lot of his streetwise wit, which does not translate well. I shall read it again in English: an example of "good" English no, an example of real English, si.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 30 2013 16:33:45