Writing for Fun: 33 Names of Things

Do up your aglets, snug your keeper, and watch out for spraints. It’s time to learn 33 Names of Things You Never Knew Had Names.

Here's the first 14...

1. AGLET
The plain or ornamental covering on the end of a shoelace.

2. ARMSAYE
The armhole in clothing.

3. CHANKING
Spat-out food, such as rinds or pits.

4. COLUMELLA NASI
The bottom part of the nose between the nostrils.

5. DRAGÉES
Small beadlike pieces of candy, usually silver-coloured, used for decorating cookies, cakes and sundaes.

6. FEAT
A dangling curl of hair.

7. FERRULE
The metal band on a pencil that holds the eraser in place.

8. HARP
The small metal hoop that supports a lampshade.

9. HEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER
A 64th note. (A 32nd is a demisemiquaver, and a 16th note is a semiquaver.)

10-13. JARNS, NITTLES, GRAWLIX and QUIMP
Various squiggles used to denote cussing in comic books.

14. KEEPER
The loop on a belt that keeps the end in place after it has passed through the buckle.

For more, go to 33 Names on the Writing Tips page of Moore Partners

Writing for Grammar: Grammar and Glamour

As of 30 November 2005, the Oxford English Dictionary contained about 301,100 main entries. The dictionary's latest, complete print edition (Second Edition, 1989) was printed in 20 volumes, comprising 291,500 entries in 21,730 pages.

The OED could be called one of the first "Wicki" projects, since much of it is compiled by volunteers.

One of the most famous of the OED's volunteer word explorers was J.R.R. Tolkien, the great medieval scholar and author of "Lord of the Rings." In a song that appears in the Ring Trilogy, Tolkien wrote "Of glamoury he tidings heard" (He heard news of magic).

In a study of Tolkien's language, "Ring of Words," the authors reveal the influence of OED learning upon all of Tolkien's scholarly and imaginative writing:"Glamoury (occult knowledge, magic, necromancy) ... is a relatively modern word (the first example in the OED files is from a Scots poem of 1811), adapted from glamour ... which the OED suggests may be due to the influence of a related word, gramarye. The connection between magic and grammar is perhaps not instantly obvious to the modern reader."

For more, go to Grammar and Glamour on the Writing Tips page of Moore Partners.

Global Business English: Get Ready for Globish

When native speakers work internationally, their language often changes. David Crystal, the author of English as a Global Language, writes: "On several occasions, I have encountered English-as-a-first-language politicians, diplomats, and civil servants working in Brussels commenting on how they have felt their own English being pulled in the direction of these foreign-language patterns . . . These people are not 'talking down' to their colleagues or consciously adopting simpler expressions, for the English of their interlocutors may be as fluent as their own. It is a natural process of accommodation, which in due course could lead to new standardised forms."

“You are bound to have more variations when you have more people writing and speaking a language,” says Steven Moore, Co-Founder and Dean of Global Business English, a web-based company that offers instructional modules, written coaching, and verbal coaching. “We might even see something like Nadsat, the verbal language Anthony Burgess created in A Clockwork Orange.”

“Nadsat is mostly English with some Cockney rhyming slang, phrases from the King James Bible, some Russian words, and words that Burgess invented.”

“Nadsat is really a vocabulary of extra words used for semi-private communication or to describe the world as they see it,” says Moore, “That makes it not so much a language as an argot. The words are inflected in English patterns regardless of their language of origin. Alex and his droogs are capable of speaking standard English when they want to.”

For more, go to Get Ready for Globish on the Writing Tips page of Moore Partners

Presentation Skills: Control Your Nervousness

One of the secrets of becoming a dynamic public speaker is to use your nervousness for energy. While some will advise strategies to reduce your nervousness, I think you can use it to your advantage.

An extra spurt of adrenaline (also known as the rush), your heart beating faster, those knots in your stomach, more rapid breathing-that's excitement, not nervousness. Redefine your physical sensations. You would feel all those things during a passionate kiss with your lover or in the middle of that holiday you've always wanted. All great performers, great actors, great athletes, and great public speakers experience nervousness, and it is one of the characteristics that helps make them great.

The times I haven't been nervous were the times I was flat and uninspiring. I'd rather be nervous. The answer lies in learning how to control the nervousness, not eliminate it. These six tips might help.

(1) Make eye contact

Making eye contact with your audience is invaluable because once you are able to look into the eyes of your listeners, you are then taking the first step in being conversational with your audience. Many people are under the mistaken belief that when they stand at the lectern, on the podium or at the boardroom table, they should be someone other than who they are. That is wrong. The person you are in your office, in your home, in a social situation or a business setting, is the person that should be giving that speech or that presentation. Don't try to be someone you're not. You are fine as you are.

Yet, inexperienced presenters, and some experienced ones, often have difficulty actually looking at their audience.

This may partly be due to nerves (If I pretend they're not there, I won't be nervous)or if staring at notes and slides, it may be a sign of inadequate preparation.

Some presenters rarely look at anyone for longer than one second, instead spending most of the time looking at the slide and talking to it. This is especially true when there are many diagrams and charts to explain. Rather than point to the information and look at the audience, the presenter points at the information on the screen and looks at it while talking.

But if we are there to talk, we should talk to someone.

For more tips, go to Control Your Nervousness on the Writing Tips page at Moore Partners.

Global Business English

Welcome to a new featured category on The Communications Coach - Global Business English. In this category we will have irregular postings on a subsection of English used in business throughout the world that is related to a new instructional website called Global Business English.

This website is a direct outgrowth of my work teaching at the Queen's School of Business and is designed to help fill the need for on-line instruction in global business English. So, check it out by clicking on a link in this posting or in our regular Links section or by clicking on the Global Business English logo. However you get there, and whether English is you first or ninth language, Global Business English can help you be a more effective writer and presenter.

The Future of Global Business is English

English is the world’s primary language for business. Because of economic, demographic, and cultural reasons, English has advantages over other languages such as Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese, French, and German.

A primary advantage in is Internet communication, which has made the world smaller and more accessible. Since English is the main Internet language, increased Internet usage means an increasing demand for English.

In the next 10 to 15 years, the number of people learning English is likely to reach a peak at around 2 billion. A significant increase will come from Chinese students, estimated now at around 250 million English learners, increasing of about 20 million per year, according to David Graddol in the British Council Publication called English Next.

It is certain that more people than ever want to learn English. Far from being news, that has become one of the few enduring facts of global modern life – a trend that began in the late 19^th century when English was heralded, from Europe to Japan, as the new rising world language.

Here’s an excerpt from an economic development brochure put out by the Hong King government (emphasis mine).

With a population of seven million, Hong Kong is a busy and energetic international metropolis. A friendly and accessible city, Hong Kong thrives on its strong work ethic and can-do attitude.

Hong Kong boasts a well-educated workforce, with almost half of all students attending universities at home or abroad. This local pool of experienced and entrepreneurial talent offers an essential mix of international market savvy with an appreciation of the business culture in the fast-growing Mainland cities, and across Asia.

In offices and boardrooms, English is the usual language of business, while many in Hong Kong speak English, Cantonese and Mandarin, providing another vital link to business with Mainland China markets and consumers.

Hong Kong’s local pool of talent offers an essential mix of international market savvy with an appreciation of the business culture in Mainland China.

• Multi-lingual workforce – English is the language of business

• Highly trained, flexible and motivated population

• Experienced in travelling and working in Mainland China and throughout the region

• Familiar with the latest international business practices

• Strong work ethic – industrial action extremely rare

Welcome to Hong Kong, Asia’s Business Capital. Invest HK.

Once the number of English speakers can be used to lure investors, it is proof that English has “currency” and value. It can be monetized, and it is the fastest way to global business success.

Writing for Grammar: More on Who vs. Whom

There is often confusion about when to use "who" and "whom". If you are unsure, use "who". It is much more common than "whom" and the use of "whom" is considered old fashioned in some circles. However, you will always be right if you remember three rules:

1. Use "who" when it is the subject of a verb.

2. Use "whom" when it is not the subject of a verb.

3. Always use “whom” after prepositions

Remember these three rules and you will never again wonder if it should be “who” or “whom”.

Rule 1. The word "who" can only be used when it is the subject of a verb.

SUBJECT OF A VERB ? What is that?

Verbs are action words like "threw", "drives", "drinks", etc.)
The subject of a verb is the person or thing that is doing the throwing, driving, or drinking.

Peter drives to Ottawa on Tuesdays.
("Peter" is the subject of the verb "drives".)

Helen's boss drinks only soda water.
("Helen's boss" is the subject of the verb "drinks".)

Harrison threw a no-hitter for the Blue Jays.
“Harrison” is the subject of the verb “threw”.

Buendia scored the winning goal.
“Buendia” is the subject of the verb “scored”.

For more on who vs whom, go to Who vs. Whom on Writing Tips at Moore Partners.

Writing for Style: Use Appositives for Detail

Revised from Richard's Grammar & Composition Blog

An appositive, a noun or noun phrase that identifies or renames another noun, is a good way to add detail or dimension to your writing. The term appositive comes from the Latin word for "placing close by," and an appositive usually appears right after the word or phrase that it renames.

You’ve already seen a nonrestrictive example in the first sentence of this writing tip (a noun or noun phrase that identifies or renames another noun) and another restrictive example from the second sentence (appositive).

Here, from George Orwell's essay "A Hanging," are three more examples:

1. We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages.
2. He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes.
3. Francis, the head jailer, a fat Dravidian in a white drill suit and gold spectacles, waved his black hand.

In each of Orwell's sentences, the appositive could be substituted for the noun it renames (cells, Hindu, Francis). Or it could be deleted without changing the basic meaning of the sentence. Set off by commas, such appositives are said to be nonrestrictive.

In some cases, an appositive might be thought of as a simplified adjective clause (a word group beginning with who or which).

This next sentence, for example, relies on an adjective clause to identify the subject, hangman:

The hangman, who was a gray-haired convict in the white uniform of the prison, was waiting beside the machine.

Now look at George Orwell's original version of the sentence, with the adjective clause reduced to a more concise appositive:

The hangman, a gray-haired convict in the white uniform of the prison, was waiting beside the machine.

Viewed this way, appositives offer a way to cut the clutter in our writing. And that, you'll have to admit, makes it a handy little device, a compact grammatical structure.

For more on changing adjective clauses to appositives, punctuating appositives and a quiz on appositives, go to Appositives for Detail on the Writing Tips page of Moore Partners.

Writing Resources: More Top 10 Writing Tools

Reduce Management Speak with Bull Fighter

Originally produced by Deloitte Consulting but now distributed as freeware, Bullfighter works with Microsoft Word, Outlook and PowerPoint to help you find and eliminate jargon in your documents.

Bullfighter includes a jargon database and an exclusive Bull Composite Index calculator that will allow you to see - in an actual window, on your PC display, live - just how bad a document can be.

7. Write Faster with Texter

This doesn't really do much to improve the quality of your writing, but it sure makes it go much faster. This tool takes keywords you type in and expands it to full text. Among other things, it works extremely well with addresses, and email signatures.

Unlike software-specific text replacement features, Texter runs in the Windows system tray and works in any application you're typing in. Texter can also set return-to markers for your cursor and insert clipboard contents into your replacement text, in addition to more advanced keyboard macros. Did we mention it's free?

For the full list, go to Top 10 Writing Tools on the Writing Tips page of Moore Partners

Writing Resources: Top 10 Writing Tools

Courtesy of Friedbeef's Tech

Here is a set of 10 tools that can be useful to any writer.

1. Improve Readability with MS-Word

The Flesch-Kincaid tests are readability tests designed to indicate how difficult a reading passage is to understand. Using simple calculations, it is able to break down text to gauge the level of education needed to grasp the writing, and how hard it is to comprehend overall.

What most people don't know is MS-Word actually comes with this test built in, so you can rate any document you produce in a few easy steps.

2. Cut Down Cliches with Cliche Finder

Improve your writing by letting it come more from the heart rather than phrases which have been overused to the point of losing its intended force. Cliche finder helps identify common cliches in your writing so you can consider rewording them. It also comes with a handy bookmarklet so you can find them on any web page.

Paste in text, click on "find Cliches" and see clichés highlighted in embarrassing red.

For the full list, go to Top 10 Writing Tools on the Writing Tips page of Moore Partners

Writing for Style: Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss

Adapted from Richard's Grammar & Composition Blog

It has often been said
there's so much to be read,
you never can cram
all those words in your head.

So the writer who breeds
more words than he needs
is making a chore
for the reader who reads.

That's why my belief is
the briefer the brief is,
the greater the sigh
of the reader's relief is.
-- Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel)

Known to children and parents as Dr. Seuss, Theodore Geisel wasn't only a writer of children's stories. Early in his career he published satirical articles, wrote advertising copy, and drew political cartoons. Even after gaining fame with books about Horton, the Grinch, and other comic characters, he kept older readers in mind as well. Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990) may have a reading level of ages four to eight, but it's most popular as a graduation gift for high school and college students.

He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1984.

Geisel's thoughts on writing are as quotable as his books. The key to good writing, he once said, is "meticulosity"--a peculiarly Seussian quality that takes years to learn.

For Dr. Siess's thoughts on writing and poetic meter, go to Dr. Seuss on the Writing Tips page of Moore Partners.

My Work: Chariots of Tire 4

Act III in our 4-part series of Clint's tire exploits in the face of a looming deadline.

Act 3: Monday morning Clint drives to Kingston to buy another nozzle. Back at the farm, he turns on the compressor, fills the tank, hauls it down to the barn on a toboggan. He has plenty of air. But when he tries to fill the first tire, he finds the valve rotted and unable to hold any air. Clint is ready to shoot the tires and be done with it.

He calls Greg at the garage and asks if he has tire valves. Yes. When Clint gets there, Greg doesn’t have the right size so Clint drives to Roblin and finds one new and one used valve in the garage there.

Clint returns to the farm, replaces the valve and fills one tire. It takes all the air in the tank so Clint trudges back up the hill with the tank on a toboggan to refill it, then back down to the barn to loosen the valve caps, then starts the tractor and eases it forward until the valve is at the top, then wiggles the air hose up between the tire and inside fender to fill it.

Tires full. Clint returns the compressor. Snows all day Monday.

Tuesday: Clint spends the whole day on the tractor blowing snow as the temperature gets warmer and warmer. Finishes just as it begins to melt.

Wednesday: 10◦C, water running everywhere, snow weighs a ton. Can’t be moved but driveways are clear. Clint gazes out the window toward the barn, the tractor, and the full tires.

Music up, roll the credits.

My Work: Chariots of Tire 3

We finally get to Act II in part 3 of 4 of the real-life screenplay about Clint's adventures with a deadline looming.

Act 2: Friday morning. Clint takes the pig back to Greg and asks to borrow it again that night full of air. He picks it up and, by the time he gets home, all the air leaks out. So that was it – a leaky pig. It snows all night Friday.

Saturday morning. Call Ben again to plow out the driveway. He tries to keep a straight face. Clint takes the leaky pig back to the garage. Greg apologizes and tries another pig. That one leaks, too. Clint calls Ben and asks if he has an air pig. Yes, Ben has a compressor with a tank at his parent’s house that could serve as a pig. He will put the hose and a tire nozzle in his shed for Clint tomorrow when he is finished plowing everyone out. Latest Forecast: Big snow again on Monday, big melt moved up to Wednesday.

Sunday morning. Clint picks up Ben’s compressor, tank, hose, and tire nozzle. He packs everything in his trunk, drives home, plugs it in, turns on the compressor and fills the tank with air. Then he decides to practise on the car tire to make sure everything works. He bends down to put air in the car tire and OMIGAWD, what happened to the nozzle that was on the end of the hose?

He looks on the floor of the garage, he takes everything out of the trunk, including the spare tire, he puts his glasses on and looks behind the stove, under the shelves, in buckets, around recycle boxes—that nozzle has disappeared. As a last resort, he thinks. He knows it was on the hose when he picked it up.

Back to Ben’s. He looks in the driveway, in the barn, outside the barn, he sifts through the straw and the snow with his fingers. Clint’s wife looks in the open bags of dog food and cat food and at Ben’s. Nothing. Movie re-rated to R because of strong language. Big storm still due Monday, melt for sure on Wednesday.

My Work: Chariots of Tire 2

Part 2 of 4 of the real-life screenplay about a small job that grew until it reached epic proportions. Comedy, action, suspense, and horror film.

Back to Thursday evening: By this time it’s dark, so Clint and his wife go down to the barn with flashlights because the solar-powered lights in the barn just give general illumination and aren’t really strong enough for close work. Filling the front tires is easy. With about 30 pounds pressure, they’re like car tires.

But the big rear tires are a different matter. Although they hold only 12 pounds pressure on a 1958 Fordson Dexta, they also contain a mixture of air and liquid calcium chloride (CaCl). Forecast: Big storms due tomorrow and Monday. The plot thickens.

Backstory: The proper term for this mixture is liquid ballast, but most people around here just call them loaded. Liquid ballast increases the weight of the tires and provides more traction. Loading both tires adds about 340 kg to their weight and 25% to the overall weight of the Dexta.

Each tire is filled with a mixture of 60 kg. of CaCl, 110 litres of water, and 1 kg of lime to prevent acidity. This protects against freezing to -40C but makes filling them with air more complicated.

The valves of the tractor tires are on the inside. Clint crawls around underneath to loosen the valve caps with pliers, as the calcium chloride is corrosive. He loosens the first cap by touch, then looks to find he was unscrewing the valve itself. More air hisses out of the tire before he can replace the valve. He starts the tractor and eases it forward until the valve is at the top so the CaCl doesn’t squirt out, then wiggles the air hose up between the inside fender and the tire to fill it.

After some grunting and squeezing, Clint discovers that the air pig is now empty. Filling the front tires shouldn’t have taken all the air, but he can’t do more today.

Latest Forecast: Heavy snows on Friday and Monday with a melt to start Thursday that would make the accumulated snow impossible to move.

My Work: Chariots of Tire 1

As the snow hangs on, self-sufficiency in the country on a solar-powered farm has it’s advantages and drawbacks. Here’s a story of a small job that grew until it reached epic proportions. A comedy, action, suspense, or horror film? You decide.

The “ticking clock” is a Hollywood term for a deadline that adds tension to a story. The hero must prevail before the bomb blows up or the asteroid hits. Well, it was Hollywood at our place when a 15-minute job took a week with a deadline looming. Here’s the screenplay for Chariots of Tire.

Act 1: On Wednesday, our hero, let’s call him Clint, needs the tractor so he can clear the latest 50 cm snowfall with the rear-mounted snowblower. Oh my, the tires are soft, both front and rear. Common when the weather gets cold and the air pressure drops. Can’t use the tractor. He calls Ben to plow out the driveway. Forecast: Two more big storms followed by a thaw when the wet snow can’t be moved but there’s plenty of time.

Clint calls Greg at the local garage to see if they have an air pig, a reinforced cylinder like a propane barbecue tank but with a hose and tire nozzle, that can be filled with air and taken to the tire. He does. Good. Greg says he will fill it and put it in the box on the old red pick-up out in back. Clint stops by on his way home Thursday evening and picks it up.

Brief Flashback: Clint coached Greg in the local baseball league. He and Clint’s son alternated between catcher and third base. Greg was quietly reliable then and he is now—plus he is an outstanding mechanic. Clint reflects on how lucky he is to have an honest, skilled, reliable mechanic close by.

So far this is a family movie.

Writing for Style: A Compendium of Styles I-W

Yesterday I posted some of my "experts" the writers who help me get into the flow of the different kind of writing I do for my clients. Here are some of my favourite I-W experts:

Adapted from About.com

• Bernard Malamud - Rich Anecdote Through Subordination
• Joseph Mitchell - Visual Description
• George Orwell - Shifting Point of View
• Wallace Stegner - Description and Sentence Fragments
• James Thurber - Interest Through Varied Sentence Length
• Frank Trippett - Examples Without Using "Examples"
• Eudora Welty - Character Through Description
• E.B. White - Friendly Voice and Metaphor
• Tom Wolfe - Status Through Description

Bernard Malamud - Subordination from A New Life (1961)

The narrator of Bernard Malamud's third novel, A New Life (1961), is Sy Levin, a troubled English teacher who abandons New York City in search of renewal at a mythical college in the Pacific Northwest. In this paragraph from early in the novel, Levin relates his encounter with his first class on the opening day of the fall term. Notice how he makes some clauses and phrases subordinate to others.

Silence thickened as he talked, the attentiveness of the class surprising him, although it was a college class--that made the difference. He had expected, to tell the truth, some boredom--the teacher pushing the tide; but everyone's eyes were fastened on him. Heartened by this, his shame at having been late all but evaporated, Levin, with a dozen minutes left to the hour, finally dropped grammar to say what was still on his mind: namely, welcome to Cascadia College. He was himself a stranger in the West but that didn't matter. By some miracle of movement and change, standing before them as their English instructor by virtue of his appointment, Levin welcomed them from wherever they came: the Northwest states, California, and a few from beyond the Rockies, a thrilling representation to a man who had in all his life never been west of Jersey City.

If they worked conscientiously in college, he said, they would come in time to a better understanding of who they were and what their lives might yield, education being revelation. At this they laughed, though he wasn't sure why. Still, if they could be so good-humored early in the morning it was all right with him. He noticed now that some of them turned in their seats to greet old friends; two shook hands as if to say this was the place to be. Levin grew eloquent. The men in the class--there were a few older students, veterans--listened with good-natured interest, and the girls gazed at the instructor with rosy-faced, shy affection. In his heart he thanked him, sensing he had created their welcome of him. They represented the America he had so often heard of, the fabulous friendly West. So what if he spoke with flat a's and they with rocky r's? Or he was dark and nervously animated, they blond, tending to impassive? Or if he had come from a vast metropolis of many-countried immigrants, they from towns and small cities where anyone was much like everyone? In Levin's classroom they shared ideals of seeking knowledge, one and indivisible. "This is the life for me," he admitted, and they broke into cheers, whistles, loud laughter. The bell rang and the class moved noisily into the hall, some nearly convulsed. As if inspired, Levin glanced down at his fly, and it was, as it must be, all the way open.

Bernard Malamud's A New Life was first published in 1961 by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy. A new edition, with an introduction by Jonathan Lethem, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2004.

For more, go to Compendium of Styles I-W on the Writing Tips Page of MoorePartners.ca

Writing for Style: A Compendium of Styles A-H

As a professional writer, I have to write in many styles. Arresting and hyperbolic for an advertisement, flowing and persuasive for a fundraising letter, short and concise for a website. When I have to adopt a style, I read some of the experts in that style to get the “feel” of it. It works well for me and might for you, too.

Adapted from About.com

Here are some of my favourite experts A-H:

Martin Amis – Breathless Hyperbole
James Baldwin – Rich Explanation Through Phrases and Clauses
Bill Bryson – Humour and Lists
Truman Capote – Parenthetical Details
Raymond Chandler – Tough Guy
Frank Conroy – Descriptive Nouns not Adjectives
E.L. Doctorow – Visual Detail
Joseph Heller – Building Absurdity

Martin Amis – Hyperbole from Money (1984)

The narrator of Martin Amis's novel Money is John Self, a larger-than-life filmmaker whose gargantuan appetites are matched by the author's hyperbolic prose style.

In LA, you can’t do anything unless you drive. Now I can’t do anything unless I drink. And the drink-drive combination, it really isn’t possible out there. If you so much as loosen your seatbelt or drop you ashes or pick your nose, then it's an Alcatraz autopsy with the questions asked later. Any indiscipline, you feel, any variation, and there’s a bullhorn, a set of scope sights, and a coptered pig drawing a bead on your rug.

So what can a poor boy do? You come out of the hotel, the Vraimont. Over boiling Watts the downtown sky line carries a smear of God’s green snot. You walk left, you walk right, you are a bank rat on a busy river. This restaurant serves no drink, this one serves no meat, this one serves no heterosexuals. You can get your chimp shampooed, you can get your dick tattooed, twenty-four hours, but can you get lunch? And should you see a sign on the far side of the street flashing BEEF--BOOZE--NO STRINGS, then you can forget it. The only way to get across the road is to be born there. All the ped-xing signs say DON’T WALK, all of them, all the time. That is the message, the content of Los Angeles: don’t walk. Stay inside. Don’t walk. Drive. Don’t walk. Run! I tried the cabs. No use. The cabbies are all Saturnians who aren’t even sure whether this is a right planet or a left planet. The first thing you have to do, every trip, is teach them how to drive.

Martin Amis's Money was first published in London by Cape in 1984. It was most recently reprinted in the U.S. by Vintage Books in 2005.

For more, go to Compendium of Styles A-H on the Writing Tips Page of MoorePartners.ca

Writing for Fun: Mark Twain on Spelling

Revised from Your Guide to Grammar & Composition

Mark Twain had little respect for what he called our "foolish" and "drunken old alphabet," or for the "rotten spelling" that it encouraged. Nonetheless, Twain was not convinced that the efforts of the spelling reformers in his day would ever succeed. As far as Twain was concerned, it was the alphabet itself that needed to be torn up and rebuilt from scratch.

Andrew Carnegie and the Spelling Reformers

The advantages and disadvantes of English are summed up by Harold Cox, Former Editor Edinburgh Review in his essay English As a World Language
(Cox, Harold, http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/pamflets/ses3.php, accessed Mar 18, 2008)

As compared with most other languages English has the enormous advantage of grammatical simplicity. There are no genders for nouns, and an adjective takes the same form whether applied to a male or female. The conjugation of verbs is also extremely simple. As a result the student of English has practically no grammar to learn. In addition, from the European point of view, English has the great advantage that it more or less represents an amalgam of languages. It is largely Scandinavian in origin, but also embodies a vast number of words directly derived from Latin, and many others coming to us from France and Italy, besides not a few coming from Germany. This language, thus built up from widely varying European sources, possesses a magnificent literature, unsurpassed by that of any other language in the world.

From these points of view English is an ideal language as an international medium. The trouble lies solely in the fact that our spelling and pronunciation have practically no relation to one another. Attention was called to this fact by the late Lord Cromer in a poem published in the Spectator of August 9th, 1902:

When the English tongue we speak,
Why is "break" not rhymed with "freak"?
Will you tell me why its true
We say "sew" but likewise "Jew"?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Beard" sounds not the same as "heard";
"Cord" is different from "word";
"Cow" is cow, but "low" is low,
"Shoe" is never rhymed with "foe,"
And since "pay" is rhymed with "say,"
Why not "paid" with "said," I pray?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And in short it seems to me
Sound and letters disagree.

For more, visit the Mark Twain on Spelling page at Writing Tips on MoorePartners.ca.

Writing for Style: Be Concise

Writers who are careless of form (and the time of their readers) fail to notice that they are writing more words than are necessary to convey the proper meaning. Words are cheap but time is not and loose writing implies loose thinking.

"Clutter is the disease of American writing," says William Zinsser in his classic text, On Writing Well. "We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon."

We can cure the disease of clutter (at least in our own compositions) by following a simple rule: don't waste words. When revising and editing, we should aim to cut out any language that is vague, repetitious, or pretentious.

Some phrases can be deleted completely:

all things being equal
all things considered
as a matter of fact
as far as I am concerned
at the end of the day
at the present time
due to the fact that
for all intents and purposes
for the most part
for the purpose of
in a manner of speaking
in my opinion
in the event of
in the final analysis
it seems that
the point that I am trying to make
type of
what I am trying to say
what I want to make clear

In other words, clear out the deadwood, be concise--and, for goodness' sake, get to the point. For more examples and Four Tips for Being Concise, go to Be Concise on the Writing Tips page of Moore Partners.

Resources: History of English

Wow, where has the time gone? Coping with snow, teaching Credit Analysts from the Saudi Industrial Development Fund at Queen's, and looking after our writing clients has transformed the last three weeks into a blur. I'll try to be more reliable in posting to this blog.

In the meantime, here is an excerpt from The History of English.

A Brief History of the English Language

From http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/historytimeline.htm

The Prehistory of English

The ultimate origins of English lie in Indo-European, a family of languages consisting of most of the languages of Europe as well as those of Iran, the Indian subcontinent, and other parts of Asia. Because little is known about ancient Indo-European (which may have been spoken as long ago as 3,000 B.C.), we'll begin our survey in Britain in the first century A.D. 43 The Romans invade Britain, beginning 400 years of control over much of the island.

410 The Goths (speakers of a now extinct East Germanic language) sack Rome. The first Germanic tribes arrive in Britain.

Early 5th century
With the collapse of the empire, Romans withdraw from Britain. Britons are attacked by the Picts and by Scots from Ireland. Angles, Saxons, and other German settlers arrive in Britain to assist the Britons and claim territory.

5th-6th centuries
Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians) speaking West Germanic dialects settle most of Britain. Celts retreat to more distant areas of Britain: Ireland, Scotland, Wales.

For more, go to History of English at Writing Tips at Moore Partners.

Writing for Style: Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist.

He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, as well as the veterans of World War One later known as "the Lost Generation", as described in his posthumous memoir A Moveable Feast.

("'That's what you are. That's what you all are,' Miss Stein said. 'All of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation.'" Stein had overheard a garage owner use the phrase to criticize a mechanic.)

He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea, and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Hemingway's distinctive writing style is characterized by economy and understatement, in contrast to the style of his literary rival William Faulkner.

Some say that Faulkner used all the adjectives while Hemingway used none. There is no one better than Hemingway and E.B. White to copy if you want clean, clear, evocative prose.

Novels

(1926) The Torrents of Spring
(1926) The Sun Also Rises
(1929) A Farewell to Arms
(1937) To Have and Have Not
(1940) For Whom the Bell Tolls
(1950) Across the River and Into the Trees
(1952) The Old Man and the Sea
(1970) Islands in the Stream
(1986) The Garden of Eden
(1999) True at First Light
(2005) Under Kilimanjaro

Collections

(1923) Three Stories and Ten Poems
(1925) In Our Time
(1927) Men Without Women
(1933) Winner Take Nothing
(1936) The Snows of Kilimanjaro
(1938) The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories
(1969) The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War
(1972) The Nick Adams Stories
(1987) The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
(1995) Everyman's Library: The Collected Stories

For my favourite excerpt from Hemingway and a discussion of Hemingway and the use of repetition, go to the Hemingway page of Writing Tips at Moore Partners.

Writing for Style: Rick Reilly

Richard "Rick" Paul Reilly (born February 3, 1958 in Boulder, Colorado) is an award-winning American sportswriter. Long known for being the "back page" columnist for Sports Illustrated, Reilly announced a move to rival ESPN that begins June 1, 2008. He has won the national Sportswriter of the Year award 11 times.

Reilly is a “popular” writer and probably will not be remembered as long as Chandler or Carver or E.B. White, but he can make me laugh out loud and bring tears to my eyes. What else do you want from a writer?

Reilly's style is usually humorous, poking fun at the absurdities of athletes, coaches, and almost anyone involved in sports at any level. Reilly does have a serious side, and has written on many subjects, from small town heroes to his own personal life. Reilly has also done features, notably one about a week spent with Marge Schott that ultimately helped lead to her suspension from baseball.

He has said in his columns that he doesn't write about sports, but writes "about people IN sports."

Bibliography

Slo Mo! – A fictional diary of a naive 7'8" kid taken from high school to the NBA.

Missing Links – A novel about an eccentric group of golfers who are regulars at the worst course in America

Shanks for Nothing – A novel which is the sequel to Missing Links

The Life of Reilly – An anthology of Reilly's best early works from Sports Illustrated

Hate Mail from Cheerleaders and Other Adventures from the Life of Reilly – An anthology consisting of one-hundred Reilly's best weekly articles from 2000-2006.

Who's Your Caddy – A collection of stories about Reilly caddying for several remarkable people ranging from Donald Trump to the blind golfing world champion.

There's more on the Rick Reilly page of Writing Tips at Moore Partners.

Presentation Skills: Before the Speech

In the days before a speech:

• Practice to boost your confidence. Treat speaking like learning to hit a golf ball or play the piano.
• Videotape your practice sessions so you know what works and what doesn't.
• Learn to project your voice and your presence. Own the room. You can use your car to start, then move on to an empty church or auditorium for trial runs.

In the minutes before a speech:

• Don't eat bananas before a speech. Seriously. Like with dairy products, you'll feel the need to clear your throat. Again and again.
• Drink room-temperature water with lemon to avoid dry mouth. Ice water constricts your vocal cords.

During a speech:

• Make eye contact with people in each part of the room. Look at one person for three seconds, then move on to another. Remember to smile.
• Don't read your presentation or clutch the podium. In fact, stay away from the podium unless you need a sip of water.
• If you do have dry mouth, don’t hesitate to take a sip. The audience will understand. Ask a question to cover the pause or use the pause to dramatize a point. Some speakers take a sip even when they don’t need to because it is such a handy device.

It's OK to feel nervous, just re-define it as excitement or anticipation. It is energy, use it. You might be aware of it but the audience won't notice. Unless you aren’t nervous at all. Then you will be flat and boring, and the audience will certainly notice that.

Writing for Style: Ten Quick Tips for Better Writing

Better writing isn’t an accident. It takes practice and intention, just like learning to hit a golf ball, shoot a puck, or ski. Whether a letter, email, essay, or blog, we should keep in mind the competition for the time and interest of our readers and write clearly and directly.

Institute one of these tips a week and in ten weeks you will be a better writer. They are divided into four subject areas: words, sentences, paragraphs, and editing.

Words

1) Use active verbs. Don't overwork the passive voice or forms of the verb "to be." Instead, use active verbs in the active voice.

No: The profit and loss was calculated by our staff.
Yes: Our staff calculated the profit and loss.
No: The figures were checked by the research department.
Yes: The research department checked the figures.

Active voice is preferable to passive for the majority of your sentences. Even in scientific writing, overuse of passive voice or use of passive voice in long and complicated sentences can cause readers to lose interest or to become confused.

2) Use specific nouns and verbs. Use concrete and specific word to convey your message clearly and keep your readers engaged.

No: A period of unfavourable weather.
Yes: It rained every day for a week.
No: He showed satisfaction as he realised his market gains.
Yes: He grinned as he sold the stock for a profit.

Call a one-person earth-moving implement a spade. Let’s face it. Vitally challenged or chronologically stunted is still dead.

There's more on the Ten Writing Tips page of Writing Tips at Moore Partners.

Writing for Grammar: Editing S to X

sans serif
A typeface that does not have a serif (crossline) decorating the main strokes of the characters.

sentence style
Capitalization style for heads and titles in which all words are in lowercase except those that would be capitalized in a sentence. Also called initial cap only.

serial comma
Comma preceding and or or in a list of items (one, two, andOxford comma.

serif
A decorative line crossing the main strokes of a letter in some type styles such as Times Roman.

sidebar
A short article or news story that complements or amplifies a major article or story.

signposting
Cross-references to topics previously discussed in a document.

sink
Distance from the top of a printed page to a specific element on that page.

solidus
Name of the / character. Also called slash or virgule.

specs
Type specifications indicating typeface, point size, spacing, margins, and the like.

stet
Latin for "let it stand." Indicates that text marked for deletion should be restored.

style sheet
Form filled in by a copy editor as a record of editorial decisions applied to a manuscript.

subhead
Small headline in the body of a text.

T of C
Short for table of contents. Also called TOC.

TK
Short for to come. Refers to material not yet in place.

trade books
Books meant for general readers, as distinguished from books intended for professionals, scholars, or students.

trim
To reduce the length of a story. Also called boil.

trim size
Dimensions of a page of a book.

UC
Short for uppercase (capital letters).

UC/lc
Short for uppercase and lowercase. Indicates that text is to be capitalized according to headline style.

unnumbered list
Vertical list in which items are not marked by either numbers or bullets.

widow
The last line of a paragraph that appears alone at the top of a page. Sometimes also refers to an orphan.

x-ref
Short for cross-reference.

Writing for Grammar: Editing K to R

Killing orphans and marking up roughs.

kerning
Tighten spacing between the letters of a word.

kill
To order deletion of text or an illustration.

line editing
Editing copy for clarity, logic, and flow.

linespacing
Space between lines of text. Also called leading.

mark up
To put composition or editing instructions on copy or layouts.

MLA style
Editing conventions recommended by the Modern Language Association in the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing--the primary style guide used for academic writing in languages and literature.

monograph
A document written by specialists for other specialists.

orphan
The first line of a paragraph that appears alone at the bottom of a page. Compare to widow (later).

pass
Read-through of a manuscript by a copyeditor.

pica
A printer's unit of measure: 12 picas equal one inch.

point
A typesetting unit of measure used to indicate font sizes.

query
An editor's question.

ragged right
Text aligned at the left margin but not the right.

redline
On-screen or hard-copy version of a manuscript that indicates which text has been added, deleted, or edited since the previous version.

rough
A preliminary page layout, not in finished form.

rule
A vertical or horizontal line on a page.

running head
One or two lines of copy, such as a chapter title, set at the top of each page of a document. Also called header.

Writing for Grammar: Editing D to H

In the editing world, a bastard title is really nothing to be ashamed about, but it should be kept out of the gutter.

dagger
Name for the † character.

dead copy
Manuscript that has been typeset and proofread.

dingbat
An ornamental character, such as a smiley face.

display type
Large type used for chapter titles and headings.

double dagger
Name for the ‡ character.

ellipsis
Name of the . . . character. Plural ellipses.

em dash
Name of the — character. In manuscripts, the em dash is often typed as -- (two hyphens).

en dash
Name of the – character.

endnote
Reference or explanatory note at the end of a chapter or book.

face
The style of type.

figure
An illustration printed as part of the running text.

first ref
First appearance in a text of a proper name or of a source in reference notes.

flag
To call someone's attention to something (sometimes with a gummed label attached to hard copy).

flush
Positioned at the margin (either left or right) of the text page.

flush and hang
Way of setting indexes and lists: first line of each entry is set flush left, and the remaining lines are indented.

FN
Short for footnote.

folio
Page number in a typeset text. A drop folio is a page number at the bottom of a page. A blind folio has no page number though the page is counted in the numbering of the text.

front matter
Material at the front of manuscript or book: title page, copyright page, dedication, table of contents, list of illustrations, preface, acknowledgments, introduction. Also called prelims.

front slash
Name of the / character.

glance
A brief listing of information that accompanies a story.

gutter
The space or margin between facing pages.

head
Title that indicates the start of a section of a document or a chapter.

headline style
Capitalization style for heads or titles of works in which all words are capitalized except articles, coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions. Sometimes prepositions longer than four or five letters are also printed in upper case. Also called UC/lc or title case.

headnote
Short explanatory material following a chapter or section title and preceding the running text.

house style
The editorial style preferences of a publisher.

Writing for Grammar: Editing A to C

In the editing world, sans serif is not a holiday resort and curly quotes aren't a cheese snack.

Copyediting (or copy editing) is the work that an editor does to improve a manuscript or a report or a proposal. Here we reveal some of the jargon of the copyediting trade: terms and abbreviations used by editors in their efforts to produce copy that is clear and correct.

When do writers need to understand these terms? When they have the privilege of working with a conscientious copy editor, or working as a conscientious copy editor.

Both are fun.

AA
Short for author's alteration, indicating changes made by an author on a set of proofs.

air
White space on a printed page.

ampersand
Name of the & character.

angle brackets
Name of the <> characters.

CP style
Editing conventions recommended by The Canadian Press Stylebook (usually called the CP Stylebook) and The Canadian Press Caps and Spelling—the primary style and usage guide for most newspapers and magazines.

apos
Short for apostrophe.

art
Illustration(s) (maps, graphs, photographs, drawings) in a text.

back matter
Material at the end of manuscript or book: appendixes, endnotes, glossary, bibliography, index.

backslash
Name of the \ character.

bastard title
Usually the first page of a book, which includes only the main title, not the subtitle or author's name. Also called false title.

block quote
Quited passage set off from the running text without quotation marks. Also called extract.

boilerplate
Text that is reused without changes in multiple documents.

box
Type that is framed in a border to give it prominence.

brackets
Name of the [ and ] characters.

bubble
Circle or box on a hard copy in which an editor writes a query or comment.

callout
Note on hard copy to indicate the placement of art or to signal a cross-reference.

caps
Short for CAPITAL LETTERS.

character
An individual letter, number, or symbol.

Chicago style
Editing conventions recommended by The Chicago Manual of Style--the style guide used by some social science publications and most historical journals.

clean up
Incorporating an author's responses to the copyediting into the final hard copy or computer file.

close paren
Name of the ) character.

content edit
An edit of a manuscript that checks for organization, continuity, and content.

copy block
A sequence of lines of type treated as a single element in design or page makeup.

copy edit
To prepare a document for presentation in a printed form. The term copy edit is used to describe the kind of editing in which errors of style, grammar, word usage, and punctuation are corrected. The spelling copyedit is often used in magazine and book publishing.

copy editor
A person who edits a manuscript. The spelling “copyeditor” is often used in magazine and book publishing.

copyfitting
Calculating how much space a text will need when typeset, or how much copy will be needed to fill a space.

corrigendum
An error, usually a printer's error, discovered too late to be corrected in a document and included in a separately printed list. Also called addendum.

credit line
Statement that identifies the source of an illustration.

Writing For Style: Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver, Jr. (May 25, 1938 - August 2, 1988) was a short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s.

Carver is my favourite author along with Raymond Chandler. I don't often put down a book and stare into the middle distance, but Carver does this to me frequently. He gives me shivers and shudders, he makes me glad I'm who I am and not one of his characters, yet he does it in such a gentle way-no gore, little violence, much is implied.

Carver Quotes:

It's been a continual series of starting-overs for me.

That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places...

Carver cites Isaac Babel's dictum, "No iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put in just the right place."

Isak Dinesen said that she wrote a little every day, without hope and without despair. I like that.

"Writers don't need tricks or gimmicks or even necessarily need to be the smartest fellows on the block. At the risk of appearing foolish, a writer sometimes needs to be able to just stand and gape at this or that thing - a sunset or an old shoe - in absolute and simple amazement."

His writing feels like that melancholy bittersweet of a mourning dove cooing at sunset. I feel sad every time I remember he is gone and that there will be no more from him.

There's more on the Raymond Carver page of Writing Tips at Moore Partners.

Writing for Style: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Marquez, also known as Gabo (born March 6, 1927 in Aracataca, Colombia) is a Colombian novelist, journalist, editor, publisher, political activist, and recipient of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. García Márquez has lived mostly in Mexico and Europe and currently spends much of his time in Mexico City.

Widely credited with introducing the global public to magical realism, he has secured both significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success.

• In Evil Hour 1962
• One Hundred Years of Solitude 1967
• The Autumn of the Patriarch 1975
• Chronicle of a Death Foretold 1981
• Love in the Time of Cholera 1985
• The General in His Labyrinth 1989
• Of Love and Other Demons 1994
• Memories of My Melancholy Whores 2004

His work seamlessly combines the real and the unreal, and his writing is more sensual than intellectual. You can feel and smell and hear his novels. They are eaten and breathed as much as read.

There's more on the Marquez page of Writing Tips at Moore Partners.

Writing for Style - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who died in April 2007 at the age of 84, was one of the most playfully distinctive stylists in modern American literature.

I was introduced to Vonnegut through Cats Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five and I was completely captivated. I had never read anything like those books and, I guess, neither had anyone else.

He also had some useful stylistic advice to pass along. In 1982, Vonnegut wrote a short piece for the International Paper Company titled simply, "How to Write with Style." He begins the essay by considering why we should strive to improve our writing style.

"Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you’re writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an egomaniac or a chowderhead--or worse, they will stop reading you."

He then offers seven deceptively simple principles:

• Find a subject you care about.
• Do not ramble, though.
• Keep it simple.
• Have the guts to cut.
• Sound like yourself.
• Say what you mean to say.
• Pity the readers.

There's more on the Kurt Vonnegut Jr. page of Writing Tips at Moore Partners.

Writing for Style: Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler's Tough Guy Prose Style

Modified from About.com

Chandler (1888-1959) is probably my favourite author, but then I think that L.A. in the 30's was heaven on earth.

His style is distinct. Here's the opening to a short story called Desert Wind, written in 1938:

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husband's necks.

Anything can happen.

Raymond Chandler, Creator of Philip Marlowe, Red Wind, 1938

"She's dark and lovely and passionate. And very, very kind."
"And exclusive as a mailbox," I said.
---The Little Sister (Chapter 19)

"It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way--but not as far as Velma had gone"---Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 41)

"I put the duster away folded with the dust in it, leaned back and just sat, not smoking, not even thinking. I was a blank man. I had no face, no meaning, no personality, hardly a name. I didn't want to eat. I didn't even want a drink. I was the page from yesterday's calendar crumpled at the bottom of the waste basket "---The Little Sister (Chapter 25)

"I never saw any of them again - except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them." ---The Long Goodbye (Chapter 52)

"I'm an occational drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard." --"The King in Yellow"

"The big foreign car drove itself, but I held the wheel for the sake of appearances." --Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 9)

There's more on the Raymond Chandler page of Writing Tips at Moore Partners.

Writing for Style: Norman Mailer

adapted from from Your Guide to Grammar & Composition.

Sorry for the long gap in posting, but I’ve been working on my Moore Partners website. Today starts a series of Writers on Writing. To keep the posts reasonably short, I’ve included website links where you can read more.

One of the best known and most controversial American novelists of the second half of the 20th century, Norman Mailer is mostly remembered for his private life of excess and activism. Mailer was married six times, and had several mistresses. He had eight biological children by his various wives, and adopted one further child. For many years, he had a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights as well as a house on the Cape Cod oceanfront in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Like many novelists of his generation, Mailer struggled with alcohol and drug abuse throughout his life. Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, but which covers the essay to the nonfiction novel.

Armies of the Night, Mailer's narrative about the march on the Pentagon, won the National Book Award in 1968 and the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. Twelve years later, The Executioner's Song, his "true-life novel" about convict Gary Gilmore, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

That is the book of Mailer’s I remember most vividly. It knocked me out in the same way as In Cold Blood did. And the TV movie starring Tommy Lee Jones as Gary Gilmour was superb.

"I will certainly be remembered as a journalist," Mailer said to interviewer Gregory Kirschling (Entertainment Weekly, 2007). "In fact, I think the irony may be that I've had much more influence as a journalist than as a novelist."

In the more than 300 interviews given by Mailer over a long career, he freely expressed his views on a broad range of topics:

The Spooky Element in Writing
One Simple Rule
Doing What's Necessary
The Fiction of Nonfiction
The Value of Writing Classes
Style
The Influence of Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner

All are under Norman Mailer on the Writing Tips page of Moore Partners.

Writing for Style: The Freight Train Part 2

Richard Lanham, in Analyzing Prose (2003), called a succession of compound written structures a running style—sentences that appear to spill from the mind as a "rambling, associative syntax of conversation."

And, in The New Oxford Guide to Writing (1988), Thomas Kane characterized the running style as the "freight-train style". Kane said the freight-train style was useful when you wish to link a series of events, ideas, impressions, feelings, or perceptions as immediately as possible, without judging their relative value or imposing a logical structure upon them.

This style directs our senses much as a camera directs them in a film, guiding us from one perception to another, yet creating a continuous experience. The freight-train style, then, brings experiences closely together and can achieve a high degree of fluidity.

In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens uses the running (or freight-train) style to give an impression of the contradictions of the time:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The freight train style can be effective in short bursts, but its limitations lie in its lack of subtlety. Thomas Kane comments that the downside of the freight-train style is that it implies that the thoughts it links together with grammatical equality are equally significant. But usually ideas are not of the same order of importance; some are major; others secondary. Moreover, this type of construction cannot show very precise logical relationships of cause and effect, condition, concession, and so on.

The only writer I know who can sustain the freight train style is Roddy Doyle. In his hands it conveys passion, excitement, complexity, and the pull of fate. It can be spectacular.

From A Star Called Henry:

(My Mother) walked into my father. Melody Nash met Henry Smart. She walked right into him, and he fell. She was half his weight, half his height, six years younger but he fell straight over like a cut tree. Love at first sight? Felled by her beauty? No. He was maggoty drunk and missing his leg. He was holding himself up with a number seven shovel he'd found inside an open door somewhere back the way he'd come when Melody Nash walked into him and dropped him onto Dorset Street. It was a Sunday. She was coming from half-eight mass, he was struggling out of Saturday. Missing a leg and his sense of direction, he hit the street with his forehead and lay still. Melody dropped the beads she'd made herself and stared down at the man. She couldn't see his face; it was kissing the street. She saw a huge back, a back as big as a bed, inside a coat as old and crusted as the cobbles around it. Shovel-sized hands at the end of his outstretched arms, and one leg. Just the one. She actually lifted the coat to check.