What great teaching ideas, Scott. If only I had time during my
one-day seminars to allow them to discover the power of verbs (and,
I'm sure other aspects of grammar and writing too) so creatively.
Linda Comerford
317.786.6404
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<http://www.comerfordconsulting.com/> www.comerfordconsulting.com
_____
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott Woods
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 2:21 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: An expert speaks? was ATEG Digest - 14 Apr 2009 to 15 Apr
2009 (#2009-86)
I generally don't give my students advice. I certainly don't refer
them to manuals. Usually, I show them what works in the writing of
others, have them practice writing like that, then train them to do
those things consistently. For instance, when they edit their
papers, I have my students identify all their verbs, circle all "be"
verbs, decide the function of each "be" verb--linking, passive,
auxiliary--then make a choice about changing the linking to action,
passive to active, progressive to simple. All I want them to do is
choose for each verb. I also have them make a choice for each action
verb about increasing its specificity. This works for noun
specificity as well.
Scott Woods
--- On Fri, 4/17/09, Paul E. Doniger <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Paul E. Doniger <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: An expert speaks? was ATEG Digest - 14 Apr 2009 to 15 Apr
2009 (#2009-86)
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Friday, April 17, 2009, 4:44 PM
For the record, although I never analyzed this in any statistical or
methodical way, many of my (high school - honors level) students'
papers seem to run into trouble when they get carried away by
adjectives and adverbs (I'm talking about academic, not creative
writing here). I wonder if anyone else has any experience with this.
Paul D.
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an
improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).
_____
From: Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 9:05:43 AM
Subject: Re: An expert speaks? was ATEG Digest - 14 Apr 2009 to 15 Apr
2009 (#2009-86)
Bill, Scott,
If the corpus grammars tell it accurately, writing with nouns and
verbs is good advice for fiction (Biber found a negative correlation
for attributive adjectives), but not for journalism or academic
writing, which build lots of meaning into the noun phrases. Of
course, saying adjectives should be used sparingly is not the same as
saying they are unimportant. The lone adjective may be the most
important word in the sentence. But English teachers especially seem
to equate literacy with literature.
I thought Pullum was a bit arrogant in the review, a bit
disrespectful of the writing teacher's perspective. And it may very
well be that linguists are much to blame for not giving us a discourse
friendly grammar to work with. There's some good advice in the little
book, but enough problems to negate that out. I usually tell students
who own the book not to pay attention to anything but the style
sections.
Craig
Spruiell, William C wrote:
> Scott:
>
> I've had similar students --- but the advice they need is more along
the
> lines of, "use specific nouns, not fluffy ones." The problem really
> isn't the adjectives and adverbs. And at least some of those
students
> aren't deliberately being verbose, or displaying signs of functional
> illiteracy (they probably know a fair number of highly specific
> nouns...but they're part of the students' passive vocabulary, rather
> than being part of the active pool that is deployed when writing).
> Instead, they've adopted a common strategy of marking out a general
area
> with the noun and then using modifiers to home in on a particular
spot
> in within it.
> In fact, it's the same thing professional writers do when they come
out
> with sentences such as "The fact that these results have been
observed
> indicates that the phenomenon is real." "Fact" is fluffy -- but
since I
> know the genre, I know when I can get away with using it (if that
> sentence bothers you, all I can say is that amazing numbers of
articles
> have been published with near-equivalents). Students pick up on that
> kind of practice, but they don't yet have enough exposure to
scientific
> genre to know which words can be used in particular cases without
coming
> across as "gauche."
>
> This simply highlights one of Pullum's points: One of S&W's major
> injunctions is that writers should be clear and concise, but they
wrote
> THEIR OWN RULE in a way that attacked a side effect of the actual
> problem rather than the problem itself, and implied there was
something
> wrong with entire classes of words that are only problematic when
> they're used as part of a compensation mechanism. It's as if I
watched
> someone using glue to connect two pieces of wood that should instead
> have been nailed together, and then proclaimed that glue is a bad
thing.
> I'd probably figure out my mistake once I saw people trying to nail
> wallpaper.
>
> Bill Spruiell
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott
> Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 1:08 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: An expert speaks? was ATEG Digest - 14 Apr 2009 to 15
Apr
> 2009 (#2009-86)
>
> Pulliam is the stupid one if he does not understand what The Little
Book
> means by "Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and
adverbs," they
> insist.
> (The motivation of this mysterious decree remains unclear to me.)
>
> Anyone who had ever graded English themes, especially descriptive
> writing,
> has been exposed to students who use plain verbs and generic nouns,
both
> of
> which are accompanied by a plethora of adverbs and adjectives
> respectively
> when more descriptive verbs and nouns would do a far better job with
> less
> effort. The only explanation that I can give for such students is
> either
> functional illiteracy or sheer laziness (many theme assignments
have--or
> used to have--a minimum number of words). The slovenly among them
use
> any
> gimmick to expand their impoverished thoughts and expression.
>
> I cannot believe that Professor Pulliam has taught English without
> having
> encountered such students: his extreme prejudice towards The Little
Book
> seems to have blinded him to the extent that he can only see vices
and
> never
> virtue. The Little Book has its faults; however, I would trust
Shrunk
> and
> White over a "grammarian" who has had too little contact with
writing to
> understand the motivation for the very sound advice:
>
> "Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs." (The
motivation of this decree is quite clear to me and has been since
> Freshman English.)
>
> Scott Catledge
> Professor Emeritus
>
> During the "God is dead" fad of the 60's, I had a bumper sticker
that
> said,
> "My God is alive--sorry about yours."
>
> My understanding of the "motivation" is clear to me--sorry it's not
> clear
> to him. Perhaps he should teach a Freshman English course sometime.
>
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