Reading:
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Grabbing ahold of language
Why is “ahold” not like “akin”? Simple really. The prefix “a-” in English has a couple of major uses. One is that it is a negativising prefix, borrowed from the Greek. So “amoral” means “without morals”. Compare with “immoral”, which uses the Latin negativiser “in”, which assimilates to a succeeding consonant in English. The other…
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How not to write badly (4): Do not sprawl
I’m cheating a bit because this is more of a “how to write” than how not to but I think it just about fits. I’m going to share my method to fix two problems writers often have: loose structure and writing too much. I’m aiming this at assignment writing but the same principles actually apply…
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How not to write badly (3)
3. Write tight Most of what I have to tell you is covered by this commandment. Be concise and avoid redundancy. As a writer, your task is to convey your meaning in as few words as possible. Less is most definitely more. Of course you already know that you should not write “in order to”…
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How not to write badly (2)
2. Write sentences the right way round I remember editing a book on Asian history in which the author insisted on writing sentences something like this: As the Manchus had banned the queue, many men felt a loss of face which I would of course correct, and he’d be very upset, mostly because I replaced…
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The case of the Del Inspiro
Sir I am writing to you because I have often read that you are a fighter for justice, and there has been no justice done in my case. I do not doubt that I deserve some punishment – I did a crime and I believe that I should pay the price for being caught –…
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How not to write badly (1)
Writing well is a skill that can only be acquired by working hard at it. You cannot overnight become a good writer. But you can quite easily avoid being a bad writer by following simple rules. I’m going to write a few posts in which I set out some of those rules. I won’t be…