Tips from the masters

Pulitzer

For me, this is what to aim at, and it comes from an extraordinary man. Joseph W Pulitzer arrived in the USA as a German-speaking immigrant and went on to command one of the greatest newspaper empires ever seen, even when his sight failed and he could see none of what his journalists produced. Look at this…

Pulitzer

Joseph W Pulitzer“Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.”

Perfect. But when it comes to how to get there, Orwell nailed it. I often use his words to play a little game with my new undergraduate students. See if you can spot it: I’ve replaced one word, and it’s poorly chosen.

Orwell’s 6 Rules

From “Politics and the English Language”

  1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
  2. Never use a long word where a short one will suffice.
  3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
  4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
  5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
  6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

More Orwell here.

I’d bet that Orwell was really writing this for himself, because writing well is never easy. Anyone who thinks their writing cannot be improved is almost certainly fooling themselves.

“I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.”
Gustave Flaubert

Grammar. I went to a grammar school in the 1970s, and oddly learnt nothing about grammar. It was only when learning to teach English as a foreign language, in Spain, that I realised how little I knew. Worse, I realised that other Europeans study grammar and understand the building blocks of language. The UK has got better at it, if the university students I have taught are anything to go by. Over 18 years of teaching, the standard of English improved with each new intake.

But we all need help. Try Eats Shoots and Leaves. Also, my students (especially those for whom English is not their first language) find Grammarly a fine tool.

I love this quote; not because I agree with it, but because it is so smartly done. “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”
–Kurt Vonnegut Jr.A Man Without a Country