Category Archives: Rants about Writing

Your Letter of the Twelfth Inst

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Seemingly all written exchanges – by email or Twitter or other electronic device – have eradicated the art of Victorian letter writing.  To that end, I re-post my attempt with apologies to all Victorian letter writers.

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Great Balderdash, Falls-on-Potomac

November 22, 1871

My Dearest Friend:

In re your letter of the twelfth inst, I am shocked to realize that a great misfortune has occurred wherein my last post has somehow conveyed to you unnecessary hardship in its reading, the poorly administered cause of which is entirely my fault.  Believe me when I say that such an unfortunate and distressful outcome is the last emotion I wish to express and even now as I write these words causes me great distress to think that there has been a misunderstanding whose result may break that mutual bond so lengthily constructed and for which I have the most sincere and foursquare concern.

No scurrilous knave, unspeakable cur, enterprising rogue or devious scoundrel could have erected such a formidable barrier to our friendship as has occurred by a simple whim, a mere fancy, a jot so insignificant as to be inconveniently overlooked and misplaced within my last missive and by whose existence has the modest incivility of this slight action been overshadowed with the enormous barbarity of my inadvertent words, the resulting outcome of which has placed our relationship in such precarious jeopardy and confers upon it a deed most foul.

I do hope that the undertakers for the incomparable and advantageous design of the speedy and safe conveyance of letters and packets (under a pound weight) to all parts of the cities, high roads, streets and suburbs thereof will have ordered their messengers, who collect such letters at any of the places aforesaid, to promptly discharge their duties and rapidly transport my reply of deepest regret to you. 1

Lest I be remiss, let me redress my words.  When I stated that you have the capacity for drawing liquid out with your mouth, I was only admiring your demonstrative skills to pull on something irresistibly, like the pull of the Sun on the planets or the Moon on the tides.  When I wrote of you in a way that implied irritation or annoyance, I dare say I only meant to call attention to your unerring ability to discomfort others by your incomparable talent in presenting indisputable and irrefutable facts in excruciating detail.  And, of course, my reference to your origins was not to cast aspersions on your genealogy but was by way of comparison a measure of your originality and uniqueness.

If, after all my aforementioned efforts to postulate my remonstrance and articulate my deepest remorse, you remain steadfast in your resentment and cannot be mellowed by the earnestness of my words nor by the long-standing nature of our relationship, I must then, with all due respect, retract my apology and repeat my original contention that you still suck, you insufferable bastard!

These words notwithstanding, I have in this, as always, the honor to be, very respectfully, your most humble and very ob’t. serv’t.,

 

1 From William Dockwra’s 18th century advertisement in the Mercurius Civicus as presented in JaneAustensWorld.

Bar Jokes for English Majors

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I am once again thankful to FOAF (friend of a friend).  These are too good not to post.  They come from the bluebird of bitterness blog and the image from the story reading ape blog to which I give credit.*

Bar jokes english major

 

A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

 

A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

 

An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

 

Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”

 

A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.

 

Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

 

A question mark walks into a bar?

 

A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.

 

Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a war. The bartender says, “Get out — we don’t serve your type.”

 

A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

 

A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.

 

Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.

 

A synonym strolls into a tavern.

 

At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar — fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.

 

A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.

 

Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.

 

A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.

 

An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

 

The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.

 

A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned a man with a glass eye named Ralph.

 

The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

 

A dyslexic walks into a bra.

 

A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.

 

An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television getting drunk and smoking cigars.

 

A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.

 

A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.

 

A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.

 

*A footnote reference walks into a bar and has no cash.  The bartender gives him credit.

If you can’t improve your health, improve your writing

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Hypertextbook.com says that an average educated person knows about 20,000 words and uses about 2,000 words in a week. Most sources say that the English language contains between 600,000 to over 1 million words depending upon how you count.  (Thank you, Captain Obvious.)  Not only do most of us use less than 3% of available words, we employ them poorly.  And when I say “we,” I mean “me, myself and I.”

As a charter member of the Failed Writers Society, I recognize my repetitive, trite speech and writing patterns especially when I come across informative reading matter.

A recent article from The New Yorker entitled Alone in the Alps by James Lasdin described the connection between the Via Alpina trail in Europe and its rich culture as follows:

“That sense of multiplicity is still strong. The Rockies may offer wilder wilderness, but you don’t experience the pleasure of sharp cultural variegation as you move from place to place…   It’s there […] in the freshly incomprehensible road signs, which is Slovenia are clotted with consonant clusters, as if vowels were an indulgence.”

This description of a consonant-rich Eastern European language is the best I’ve come across since a Car Talk episode called Vowels to Bosnia – http://www.cartalk.com/content/vowels-bosnia

So what’s the connection between not improving your health and improving your writing? Well, if nothing else, not improving your heath will give you less time to improve your epitaph* when that inevitable day comes.

[*Dr. Language Guy wishes to point out that he word “epitaph” comes from the Latin epitaphium, which, in turn, comes from the Greek epitaphion, meaning “over or at a tomb.”  This is derived as epi (“on” or “over”) + taph(os) (“tomb”).]

Here are some better examples.

In a London cemetery:

Here lies Ann Mann,

Who lived an old maid

But died an old Mann

Dec. 8, 1767

 In a Ribblesford, England cemetery:

The children of Israel wanted bread;

And the Lord sent them manna.

Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,

And the Devil sent him Anna.

In Boot Hill, Tombstone, Arizona:                          

Here lays Butch,

We planted him raw.

He was quick on the trigger,

But slow on the draw.

 Also in Boot Hill:                          

Here lies Lester Moore

Four slugs from a 44

No Les

No more.

 Of a hanged sheep thief, in Lame, Ireland:

Here lies the body

Of Thomas Kemp

Who lived by wool

But died by hemp.*

 * A witticism from Cervantes’ Don Quixote states:  “One does not speak of hemp in the house of the hanged.”

A lawyer’s epitaph in England:

 Sir John Strange

Here lies an honest lawyer,

And that is Strange.

 In Newbury, England (1742):

 Tom Smith is dead, and here he lies,

Nobody laughs and nobody cries;

Where his soul’s gone, or how it fares,

Nobody knows, and nobody cares.

 In a Welland, Ontario cemetery:

Here lies all that remains of old Aunt Charlotte,

Born a virgin, died a harlot.

For sixteen years she kept her virginity,

A marvelous thing for this vicinity.

 

And finally, in Hollywood Forever cemetery:

Improveyourwriting

 

The Penis from Venus

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I was reading articles from a recent issue of The New Yorker and came across Eight Short Science-Fiction Stories (including the Penis from Venus) by Paul Simms and Omission, choosing what to leave out by John McPhee. In my tangled, warped mind, I combined them into a stream of conscientiousness (or, in my case, a swamp of conscientiousness) about writing and blogging. McPhee is a favorite author of mine: I have enjoyed Assembling California, Basin and Range and The Curve of Binding Energy, among others. McPhee has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1965, has published twenty-eight books and teaches a course in Creative Non-fiction.

McPheeJohn McPhee

McPhee emphasized that “creative non-fiction is not making something up but making the most of what you have.” On occasion, an article has to be shortened in order to fit the available space but most of the time any post, article, short story or novel can use judicial editing to improve the work. Editors, a sadly neglected and all but abandoned lot, would agree. McPhee stressed his point by using the analogy of Michelangelo as a sculptor “with six tons of Carrera marble, a mallet, a point chisel [and other tools]: ‘I’m just taking away what doesn’t belong there.’” So prose writing is as much about what is NOT written as what is.

It got me to thinking, what should I leave out of any of my posts when blogging?

  • The penis from Venus – Yes, but then I would not have gotten your attention.
  • The dream where I was dancing nude at my school reunion – Definitely.
  • Any health issue that involves the description of one or more orifices – Most definitely.
  • How to build a thermonuclear bomb from six common items found in most kitchens – Not a good idea.
  • Using hot lead enemas as a means of corporal punishment – Um, yes.
  • A discussion of the effect of 2,4,6 acetyl dichlorobenzene on the anechoic chamber of the rat – Yes.
  • My Congressional Medal of Honor, my Nobel Peace Prize and my Pulitzer – Oh, wait, it’s creative NON-fiction.
  • The moaning sounds and the God-awful smells that emanated from a dumpster near 43rd Street the last time I visited New York City – Maybe.
  • Alien anal probing and sex with animals – See the penis from Venus, above.
  • OOGA horns – No, there is always room for OOGA horns. http://www.ahooga.com/ahooga_wav.shtml

McPhee also quoted Hemingway saying “If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them.” With that thought in mind, here are the other items to omit “as though I had stated them:”

  • –
  • –
  • –
  • –
  • –

Did you cover all of them for me?

Oh, and what does any of this have to do with Eight Short Science-Fiction Stories? That’s where the swamp of conscientiousness comes in.

Fifty Shades of Grumpy Reviews

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I really got excited about turning my idea for Fifty Shades of Grumpy into a novel.  It could even become a major motion picture!

Fifty Review1

I already had the basic formula sketched out.  I then turned that sketch into an outline.  Finally I set to work on a preliminary draft.  Before going any further I thought it best to send the draft to selected reviewers to get input.  I got back some of their comments and I see that I need to do a little more work.

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I have never read anything like it and hope I never do again.                            –New York Times

 

If you only read one book this year, don’t make it this one.                  –Washington Post

 

This is a book for which the words “out of print” will be a blessing.           –Chicago Tribune

 

Spectacular!  Sexy and erotic!  Brilliant!  A sensational read!                             These are the words I would use to describe some other book but not this one. –Los Angeles Times

 

The book should be made of toilet paper so that it would at least be useful for something.                                                                                                                    –Barron’s

 

Thinking of all the starving children in the world is preferable to reading this nonsense.                                                                                                                             –The Wall Street Journal

 

This book sucks!                                                                                                                    –Rolling Stone

 

Mixing the book with sewage would improve it.                                                         –The New York Review of Books

 

Yet another indication that America never mastered the English language. –Guardian (UK)

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The critics have spoken, the bastards!

Fifty Shades of Grumpy,                                                                                               NOT coming to a book store near you anytime soon;                                             NOT to be a major motion picture.

Sigh.

Fifty Review2