moira de swardt

;-] Rools for Righters

(Rules for Writers)

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.

2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.

4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)

6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.

7. Be more or less specific.

8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually)
unnecessary.

9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.

10. No sentence fragments.

11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.

12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary;
it's highly superfluous.

14. One should NEVER generalize.

15. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.

16. Don't use no double negatives.

17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.

19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

20. The passive voice is to be ignored.

21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical=20
words however should be enclosed in commas.

22. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.

23. Kill all exclamation points!!!

24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.

25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth
earth-shaking ideas.

26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its
not needed.

27. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate
quotations. Tell me what you know."

28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times:
Resist hyperbole. Not one writer in a million can use it correctly.

29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.

30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

31. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

32. Who needs rhetorical questions?

33. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

And finally...

34. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

Moira, the Faerie Godmother

logosman

Nice one Moira. Hope I never any of these rules break!!!

slow eddy

Forgive me, for I have sinned ...

Some good advice I'll probably continue to ignore. I like my sentence
fragments, for one.

But thanks, anyway.

--

Slow Eddy

moira de swardt

Because I write sermons I practice writing the way I speak to a
greater or lesser degree (still a bit stilted on the ear, but not as
bad as formal English would be). So I also write sentence
fragments. And write "actually" a lot. :-)

Moira, the Faerie Godmother

slow eddy

I think that my favourite expression would probably something like, "I think
that...". And my favourite word would probably be "probably" - or perhaps
it's "perhaps". Still. Your piece does just about cover all the major
transgressions commonly committed against the language.

I was thinking. About JP Donleavy's funny book. Called "The Onion Eaters".
But then his excuse could be that it's Clementine narrating it. Clementine
of the Three Glands. Descendant. (Or so it turns out). Of an awful Scottish
baron. So he inherits the castle. And a dog. Dog has become listless. Needs
to be carried everywhere. And it's a huge dog. Clementine of the Three
Glands takes up his patrimony. Things begin only modestly strangely. Then.
Along come the Onion Eaters. Scientists. Great believers in the virtues of
onions. Come along to eat and drink the castle dry. Freebooters. And they
get him into a war. And the book is written. Like this. Phrase phragments.
And it works. Maybe because there are so many paragraphs.

JP Donleavy also wrote "The Beastly Beatitutes of Balthazar B." Happy fellow
who ia. beats his wife often. Seems Donleavy did the same. Somehow I just
can't bring myself to read it. Perhaps it's because I don't want to look in
there.

--

Slow Eddy

moira de swardt

Stylistic mannerisms are not usually offensive to anyone but purists
and nit-pickers. On a newsgroup they help out "flesh out" a
character. One knows things about people by their style of writing.
One can tell the private school boys from the public school ones.
One can determine who is familiar with the written language for
regular communication. One can determine whether one would like to
spend an evening in their company or not.

Little things like the use of swear words, or the puritanical
avoidance of the use of swear words even in the rare circumstances
where it is not inappropriate, give character clues which are very
important. People who are pedantic in their written communication
are likely to be so in real life. The same applies to people who
take unnecessary and ugly shortcuts.

Eaters".

It would irritate me. I even write out text messages on cellphones
correctly. So does Mark. It's probably one of the reasons we
haven't killed each other yet. We share values.

Moira, the Faerie Godmother

kp de kont

OK, so now the fat lady is putting on a holier than though poncy
air about herself claiming to be a linguistic expert. Oh, give
us all a break - you are no more a writer than John Butt is
straight. And who is this Mark you speak of so affectionately -
some between lovers poofter that you are helping to cope with
life. My God, you really don't get out much do you. Get a life,
repent your boer sins (move out of the denial phase) and get a
real job. I'm not surpsed that you got the boot from Distillers -
like your old mate sasby did at Coopers (with some help from
uncle Norman in Canada).

KP

slow eddy

It does start off a bit irritating, but eventually you get used to it. And
he breaks his phrases up well. Much better than my attempt to imitate him
would suggest. Thing is there's a story driving you along through the odd
language use, and I think that's what keeps one reading. Here, on usenet,
the stories we tell don't run for that kind of length, and we answer
questions rather faster than a novelist does. I think you'd have a good
laugh at "The Onion Eaters", rather than bail out in irritation.

--

Slow Eddy

spizz

Like yours? Stalking a women on a newsgroup!!! Have you no friends in your
new country Kippie? Ag shame....

Spizz