Saturday, June 7, 2008
9:04 AM
“
Hahas euu beriz funniex!! “ --These are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. Seemingly commonplace amongst the unlearned, one should turn resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style—all mannerisms, tricks, adornments, at least in Singapore’s context.
Writing is, for most, laborious and slow; one should not indulge in sesquipedalian lexicological constructions, for style is an increment in writing. All writers, by the way they use the language, reveal something of their spirits, their habits, their capacities and their biases.
Now compare with the former,“
He did not still feel weak, he was merely luxuriating in that supremely gutful lassitude of convalescence in which time, hurry, doing, did not exist, the accumulating seconds and minutes and hours to which in its well state the body is slave both waking and sleeping, now reversed and time now the lip-server and mendicant to the body’s pleasure instead of the body thrall to time’s headlong course. “
How different are their prose!This is not to disparage the former; for they have great powers, powers to momentarily cause spastic retardation, powers capable of triggering bowel contractions. ‘Rich, ornate’ prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating.
Adverbs are easy to build. Take an adjective or a participle, add –ly and behold! You have an adverb. The last time I checked, where credibility is never questioned, mindless addition of letters such as x, s, u and i was never integrated in our lifetime of lingual education! Not only does it corrupt the ever-foolish mindset that it is, at all a cute way of expression, it malfunctions one’s deviant intuitive compass to the art of writing. Always, under any circumstances avoid the elaborate, the pretentious, the coy, and the cute.
What are your elements of style? – That is the question.
Labels: elements of style
