I just happened to look at White's own use of linking verbs in
"Elements," Chapter 5, "An Approach to Style." Here are some of the
main verbs in his first paragraph:
is, are, are, are, is, is, be, are
And here are all the main verbs in paragraph three:
is, speak, mean, mean, use, reveal, is, is, is, is, remains
Long live "be," we can't write without it.
Ed S
On Apr 17, 2009, at 10:58 PM, STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:
> Different types of verb fulfill different functions in discourse,
> and, while linking verbs can get overused, just as passive voice
> can, they exist in language because language needs them to
> communicate effectively. I suspect coaching writers on how to use
> linking verbs effectively would produce better writing—and writers—
> than banning them.
>
> Herb
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]
> ] On Behalf Of Linda Comerford
> Sent: 2009-04-17 19:05
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: An expert speaks? was ATEG Digest - 14 Apr 2009 to 15
> Apr 2009 (#2009-86)
>
> Much to my dismay, I used to recommend using adjectives and adverbs
> for more colorful writing--until I learned that the two most
> powerful parts of speech are the subject and the verb. Now, I
> emphasize using active versus linking verbs. When I used to teach
> at our local university, one of the professors used to give his
> students an assignment of writing a paragraph without any linking
> verbs. Although the students struggled with it, they valued their
> resulting learning from it. I'm now a true fan of active verbs!
> (Ooops, I just noticed I used a contracted form of a linking verb in
> my previous sentence.)
>
> Linda
>
>
> Linda Comerford
> Comerford Consulting
> 317.786.6404
> [log in to unmask]
> [log in to unmask]
> www.comerfordconsulting.com
>
>
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]
> ] On Behalf Of Paul E. Doniger
> Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 6:44 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: An expert speaks? was ATEG Digest - 14 Apr 2009 to 15
> Apr 2009 (#2009-86)
> 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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