July 1: Strunk and White Day

July 1:  Strunk and White Day

Today is the birthday of William Strunk, Jr.(1869-1946), the principal author of The Elements of Style.  This book, also known as Strunk and White, is without a doubt one of the most influential style guides of all time, selling over ten million copies.  Strunk originally published the book as an instructional pamphlet for his students at Cornell University in 1918.  The book gained its great notoriety after it was revised and published by Strunk’s former student E. B. White in 1959.

The 11 Principles of Composition below are just a sample of the advice for writers found in The Elements of Style.

1.      Choose a suitable design and stick to it.

2.      Make the paragraph the unit of composition.

3.      Use the active voice.

4.      Put statements in positive form.

5.      Use definite, specific, concrete language.

6.      Omit needless words.

7.      Avoid a succession of loose sentences.

8.      Express coordinate ideas in similar form.

9.      Keep related words together.

10.  In summaries, keep to one tense.

11.  Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end.

Assignment 1:  Select one of the principles in the list above and explain why it is either good advice or bad advice for writers.  

Assignment 2:  What is your single most important Principle of Composition?  In other words what do you think is the most important piece of advice that a writer can follow?  State your advice as a rule; then, explain it in detail with showing examples where appropriate.

Quote of the Day:  Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.  –William Strunk, Jr.

July 27: SMOG Day

Today is the anniversary of the coinage of the word smog. On July 27, 1905 the London Globe reported: "At a meeting of the Public Health Congress Dr. Des Voeux did a public service in coining a new word for the London fog, which was referred to as smog, a compound of smoke and fog" (1). Smog is just one example of a class of English words know as blends (a.k.a. portmanteau words).

The London fog of Dickens and Hollywood was certainly less romantic than it appeared. The major culprit of the city's dark fog was coal burning; it seems appropriate that a physician would be the one to appear on the scene to name the culprit and to try to clear it up.

When it comes to writing, there is another kind of SMOG know as the Simple Measure Of Gobbledygook. This type of SMOG is a test of a text's readability, based on a formula devised by reading researcher G. Harry McLaughlin. McLaughlin says he designed his formula in 1969 BC [Before Computers], to give educators an easy method of calculating the grade level of a given text.

The readability formula works like this: First, select three, 10-sentence samples from the text. Second, count the words in the text that are 3 or more syllables. Third, estimate the count's square root, and add 3. The resulting number will correspond to the estimated grade-level of the text.

The list below shows the SMOG levels followed by examples of periodicals that have text at the different grade levels:

-0 - 6 low-literate: Soap Opera Weekly

-7 junior high school: True Confessions

-8 junior high school: Ladies Home Journal

-9 some high school: Reader's Digest

-10 some high school: Newsweek

-11 some high school: Sports Illustrated

-12 high school graduate: Time Magazine

-13 - 15 some college: New York Times

-16 university degree: Atlantic Monthly

-17 - 18 post-graduate studies: Harvard Business Review

-19+ post-graduate degree: IRS Code (2).

Today, in the age of computers, you can use the SMOG Formula online by simply cutting and pasting your text. This post, for example, comes in at 11.02 on the SMOG Index.

The word gobbledygook, however, refers to more than just multisyllabic words. It means unintelligible language, especially jargon or bureaucratese.

The word was coined by Texas lawyer and Democratic Congressman Maury Maverick. He created the word in 1944 when referring to the obscure, smoggy language used by his colleagues. The used the turkey as a metaphor, since the bird is “always gobbledy gobbling and strutting with ludicrous pomposity.”

It should be noted that word origins ran in the Maverick family. Maury's grandfather was Samuel Maverick, the Texas rancher who became famous and eponymous for his unconventional practice of not branding his cattle. Of course today a maverick is anyone who stands outside the crowd, or herd, defying the status quo (3).

One organization defying SMOG is the Plain English Campaign based in New Mills, Derbyshire, England. Their stated mission is to fight "for crystal-clear language and against jargon, gobbledygook and other confusing language."

Each year the Plain English Campaign presents The Golden Bull Awards for the year's worst examples of gobbledygook. Here is one example of a 2004 winner:

British Airways for terms and conditions

CHARGES FOR CHANGES AND CANCELLATIONS NOTE – CANCELLATIONS – BEFORE DEPARTURE FARE IS REFUNDABLE. IF COMBINING A NON-REFUNDABLE FARE WITH A REFUNDABLE FARE ONLY THE Y/C/J-CLASS HALF RETURN AMOUNT CAN BE REFUNDED. AFTER DEPARTURE FARE IS REFUNDABLE. IF COMBINING A NON-REFUNDABLE FARE WITH A REFUNDABLE FARE REFUND THE DIFFERENCE /IF ANY/BETWEEN THE FARE PAID AND THE APPLICABLE NORMAL BA ONEWAY FARE. CHANGES/UPGRADES- PERMITTED ANYTIME (4).

Today's Challenge: Clear the SMOG

Below are examples given by the Plain English Campaign of sentences containing gobbledygook. Rewrite each sentence, eliminating the gobbledygook and replacing it with clear English.

1. High-quality learning environments are a necessary precondition for facilitation and enhancement of the ongoing learning process.

2. If there are any points on which you require explanation or further particulars we shall be glad to furnish such additional details as may be required by telephone.

3. It is important that you shall read the notes, advice and information detailed opposite then complete the form overleaf (all sections) prior to its immediate return to the Council by way of the envelope provided.

Quote of the Day: 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 squirting out ink. --George Orwell Suggested

Answers: 1. Children need good schools if they are to learn properly. 2. If you have any questions, please ring. 3. Please read the notes opposite before you fill in the form. Then send it back to us as soon as possible in the envelope provided.

1 - Funk, Charles Earle. Thereby Hangs a Tale: Stories of Curious Word Origins. New York: HarperPerennial, 1950.

2 - McLaughlin, G. Harry. SMOG: SImple Measure of Gobbledygook. http://www.harrymclaughlin.com/SMOG.htm

3 - Quinion, Michael. "GOBBLEDYGOOK OR GOBBLEDEGOOK." World Wide Words. http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-gob1.htm 4 - http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/index.html

July 21: Hemingway Day

Today is the birthday of Ernest Hemingway, born in Illinois in 1899.

He began his writing career as a journalist when he was 17, working as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star. When America entered World War I, he tried to enlist but was rejected on the basis of a medical condition. He traveled to Europe anyway and became an ambulance driver for the Italian Army. He later wrote one his best known novels A Farewell to Arms (1929) based on his experiences in the war.

After World War I, he returned to the states, but soon was back in Europe as a journalist for the Toronto Star. Living in Paris, he met other expatriate American writers such as Ezra Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald who encouraged him to write fiction. He took their advice, writing about his experiences as an American living in Europe in The Sun Also Rises (1926). He traveled to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s; this was the setting of his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). He won the Pulitzer Prize for his short novel The Old Man and the Sea in 1953, and the next year he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Hemingway committed suicide on July 2, 1961.

Hemingway's characters reflected his own experiences and personality. War, adventure, drinking, bull-fights, big game hunting and fishing were his favorite topics, and, when he wasn't writing, these were his own favorite activities.

Hemingway's writing style is known for its clarity, simplicity, and terseness. His characters' dialogue is straightforward and honest, except for the occasional understatement. In talking about writing, Hemingway said: "All you have to do is write one true sentence, a true simple declarative sentence" (1, 2)

Today's Challenge: Hemingway On Writing

Reading quotes by Hemingway is like attending a master course on writing. Read the eight quotes below about writing. Notice not just what Hemingway says, but also how he says it. Is he practicing what he preaches? What do you notice about his word choice and the structure of his sentences? Finally, which quote do you like the best and why?

1. Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.

2. All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.

3. Try and write straight English; never using slang except in dialogue and then only when unavoidable. Because all slang goes sour in a short time. I only use swear words, for example, that have lasted at least a thousand years . . . .

3. The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in shock-proof shit-detector.

4. It wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg Address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics.

5. All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.

6. I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

7. If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.

8. All our words from loose using have lost their edge.

Quote of the Day: All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. --Ernest Hemingway

Word of the Day: Terse (adjective) -brief and to the point.

Write: What one book would you call the "most true" book? Why?

1 - "Ernest Hemingway." The Nobel Prize in Literature 1954. Nobelprize.org
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html

2 - Adler, Mortimer. "Biographical Note on Ernest Hemingway" from Great Books of the Western World. Edition 60: Imaginative Literature: Selections from the Twentieth Century. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1996.

Military Metaphor in Ethan Frome

In the novel Ethan Frome, the winter weather is a major character. The following passage from the opening chapter is a great example of how a writer uses metaphor to create images and to set a tone. In this case the picture is the besieged town of Starkfield, and the tone is one of the inhabitants being captive to the oppressive cold and snow.

As students read the passage, have them highlight the words used by the author to extend the military metaphor:

When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold; when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter. Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer, and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the beleaguered villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister force of Harmon's phrase: "Most of the smart ones get away." But if that were the case, how could any combination of obstacles have hindered the flight of a man like Ethan Frome?

A good follow-up activity is to have students write a description of their own hometown using an extended metaphor.

Revision With Anaphora

Today in class I showed students the following two versions of the same passage. Previously they had written on the following prompt: In a crisis, is it best to act quickly and instinctively, or should you slow down and be more careful and deliberate? I asked students to read the passages and identify the anaphora (see Anaphora Day: August 28). I then asked:


Does the anaphora in Version 2 make it better or worse than Version 1?

Version 1
In a crisis, immediate, instinctive action is not always the best alternative because as humans we should capitalize on our evolutionary advantage: our ability to think and deliberate before acting. Certainly time is an issue. If you are Peyton Manning and a 300 pound opponent is about to squash you, there is no time to stop and deliberate; instead, you must act immediately. However, the best players, like Peyton Manning don’t use just instinct. They spend the time they have before a game planning, thinking, deliberating, studying film, and anticipating what they will do when the opponent is blitzing. It’s this kind of planning that gives them the advantage come game time. They have used the time allotted and their brain power to its full advantage. It is this careful planning and thinking that separates us from animals and that separates the great athletes, CEOs, generals, and presidents from the average ones. It was the great Dallas Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach who said, “Spectacular achievements are always preceded by unspectacular preparation.” Deliberate planning and thinking is not always as flashy and impressive as decisive, immediate action, but it is, in the long-run, more important.

Version 2
In a crisis, immediate, instinctive action is not always the best alternative because as humans we should capitalize on our evolutionary advantage: our ability to think and to deliberate before acting. Certainly time is an issue. If you are Peyton Manning and a 300 pound opponent is about to squash you, there is no time to stop and deliberate; instead, you must act immediately. However, the best players, like Peyton Manning, don’t use just instinct. They spend the time they have before a game carefully planning and carefully thinking and carefully deliberating and carefully studying film and carefully anticipating what they will do when the opponent is blitzing. It’s this kind of planning that gives them the competitive advantage come game time. They have used the time allotted and their brain power to its full advantage. It is this careful planning and thinking that separates us from animals and that separates the great athletes, great CEOs, great generals, and great presidents from the average ones. Hall of Fame quarterback Dallas Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach said, “Spectacular achievements are always preceded by unspectacular preparation.” Deliberate planning and thinking is not always as flashy and impressive as decisive, immediate action, but it is, in the long-run, more important.


Students' comments about the passages helped to illustrate the kinds of questions that writers ask as they revise. Some students felt that the anaphora in Version 2 was a bit over-done. They preferred the second use of it in "great athletes . . . " over the first use of it in "carefully planning . . . ." Some did notice, however, that the "carefully planning" sentence shows how form can follow function. Repeating the word "carefully" as well as the word "and" slows down the sentence, which echoes the writer's point: don't act swiftly -- slow down and take your time. My goal here was to show that rhetorical devices like anaphora aren't just decorations. Instead they are tools that writers use for a purpose -- the right tool helps the writer accomplish his goal, just as the right rhetorical device helps the writer make his point.

September 4: Light Bulb Joke Day

Today is the anniversary of the opening of the first commercial electric power station. On September 4, 1882 Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) pulled the switch that lit the streets of New York City (one square mile) for the first time.

Edison held over one thousand patents, but his best known invention is the one he invented in 1879: the light bulb or the "electric lamb" as it was known in those days. But the light bulb is just one component in a much larger system that was perfected by Edison. We take electricity for granted today, but before any single bulb can be lit, an entire power network must be set up and made operational. As explained by Edison biographer Neil Baldwin, lighting the streets of New York took much more than just screwing in a light bulb:

You have to think of the dynamo that generates the electricity, the wire that goes under the streets, the wire that goes from the streets to the actual apartment or factory, the fuses, the measuring system for the meters, the filaments of the bulb.

No one before or after Edison had demonstrated such a capacity for innovative thinking. He generated an amazing quantity of new ideas and transformed those ideas into practical inventions that change the lives of every man, woman, and child in America. In addition to the light bulb, the phonograph, motion picture camera, telegraph, telephone, and typewriter are just a few examples of the innovations he either developed or improved. Not only were his ideas numerous, they were also practical. His Menlo Park laboratory laid the foundation for the modern research laboratory -- companies like General Electric that bring teams of people together to research, test, and manufacture the latest technology. Edison had a seemingly boundless reservoir of energy -- he was known for working for one hundred nights in a row in his lab -- but he also knew how to collaborate with others to multiply his efforts.

Speaking of working alone versus working with groups, one offshoot of Edison's invention -- one that he most likely did not invent -- was the light bulb joke. These jokes are an example of a genre of jokes, like "Knock, knock jokes" or "Why did the chicken cross the road jokes," that have endless variations, covering just about any group of people imaginable: religious, professional, cultural, or special interest group. The set-up question is always the same: How many (name of group) does it take to change a light bulb?

The answer to the question is the punch line, which inevitably pokes fun at the target group.

Today's Challenge: The Bulbs They Are A-Changin'
Joke writing, like any genre of writing, requires creative thinking and attention to structure. Below are ten sample light bulb jokes from Energy Quest, the energy education website of the California Energy Commission. Read the jokes, and then take a your own "turn" at writing some of your own light bulb jokes.

1. How many telemarketers does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but they have to do it while you're eating dinner.

2. How many Valley Girls does it take to change a light bulb? "Oh my GOD! Like, manual labor? Gag me with a spoon! For sure."

3. How many reference librarians does it take to change a light bulb? I don't know; I'll have to check on that and get back to you.

4. How many science fiction writers does it take to change a light bulb? Two, but it's actually the same person doing it. He went back in time and met himself in the doorway and then the first one sat on the other one's shoulder so that they were able to reach it. Then a major time paradox occurred and the entire room, light bulb, changer and all was blown out of existence.

5. How many paranoids does it take to change a light bulb? WHO WANTS TO KNOW?

6. How many procrastinators does it take to screw in a light bulb? One, but he has to wait until the light is better.

7. How many mystery writers does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to screw the bulb almost all the way in, and one to give a surprising twist at the end.

8. How many dull people does it take to change a light bulb? One.

9. How many fiction writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
"It was late, and the room was dark. Something was wrong..." (2)

Quote of the Day: Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. --Thomas Edison

1 - Baldwin, Neil. "Thomas Edison." Booknotes Life Stories. Ed. Brian Lamb. New York: Times Books, 1999.

2 - Energy Quest. California Energy Commission.
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/games/jokes/light_bulb.html

August 5: Brainstorming Day

Today is the birthday of Alex F. Osborn the father of brainstorming. Born in New York, New York in 1886, he pursued a career in journalism but eventually found himself working in business, first in sales and then in advertising.

In 1938 the advertising company that he founded (Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn) began using an organized method of generating ideas. Although Osborn is credited with coining the word for this technique, brainstorming, he never took full credit for the word; instead, he acknowledged his colleagues who along with Osborn used their brains to attack or storm a problem. Osborn also credited religious leaders in the East, saying that that Hindu teachers in India used a similar technique for more than 400 years. In India it was called Prai-Barshana: Prai for "outside yourself" and Barshana for "question."

Regardless of where the word came from, brainstorming is a vital technique for generating ideas in business, government, and especially for writing.

Typically brainstorming sessions work best in small groups, so that the individuals can join forces and build on the ideas of other in the group. The goals is to create a list of ideas that has flexibility and fluency. Fluency means the number of ideas generated, and flexibility means how different the ideas are from each other and how different they are from what most people think up.

In order to create a list of ideas that has flexibility and fluency, follow these rules:

1. Defer judgment. Don't edit, eliminate, or hold back any ideas. Criticism kills participation, and often an idea that looks bad at first turns out to be a good one in the long run. Osborn used the following analogy to illustrate the need to put criticism aside when brainstorming:

If you try to get hot and cold water out of the same faucet at the same time, you will get only tepid water. And if you try to criticize and create at the same time, you can’t turn on either the cold enough criticism or the hot enough ideas. So let’s stick solely to ideas-lets cut out all criticism during this session.

2. Go for quantity of ideas. The more ideas, the greater the likelihood that some of those ideas will be good. A good analogy for this is a professional photographer who takes hundreds of pictures, knowing that only a very small percentage of those pictures will be worth keeping.

3. Encourage wild, exaggerated ideas. Free from the criticism and logic of the left brain, the right side of the brain, the creative side, will have a higher likelihood of creating something new. Image how absurd the initial idea of selling bottled water must have been? Why would people pay for water when they can get it free from the tap? Alex Osborn believe in the power of the human imagination to generate new ideas that can change our lives for the better. His 1953 book Applied Imagination is a pioneering work in the field of creativity. In this book he outlines techniques like brainstorming that help us to enter into the creative mindset and stay there for a longer period of time.

Today's Challenge: The Forecast Calls for Brainstorming

Brainstorming is an important prewriting technique for writers. The more time you spend brainstorming, the higher the chances that you will find something that is really worth writing about. Below are 10 questions for brainstorming. Get a small group together, or practice on your own. Use the rules for brainstorming to generate a large list of ideas that has both fluency and flexibility.

1. What are some ways we might improve the #2 pencil?

2. What would be the best opening scene for a suspense film?

3. In the opening sentences of a novel, the main character takes off his shoes and socks and ties the two sock into a knot. Why is he doing this?

4. If we divided blogs into three or more different categories, what might those three categories be?

5. What are the similarities and differences between cats and dogs?

6. What are some examples of stupid things that otherwise intelligent people sometimes do by mistake?

7. What are the three most important steps in studying for a test?

8. What will you see on the Internet five year from now that you don't see today?

9. Imagine that next year, 8-track tapes make a big comeback. Why might this happen?

10. What would be an interesting question for brainstorming in a small group?

Quote of the Day: It's the miner's headlamp, not the eureka flash, that drives reliable innovation. The process of innovation is the sweaty work of digging through tons of information to find a few golden nuggets -- mainly unlikely knowledge combinations. \

--T George Harris

1 - Gurule, Jason. "Alex F. Osborn." The seminar on Theories of Persuasive Communication and Consumer Decision-Making for Dr. John Leckenby at the University of Texas at Austin. http://www.ciadvertising.org/student_account/spring_02/adv382j/jagurule/Osborn/osbornfront.html