Quote of the Day

In my career as a professional writer, few qualities have been so needlessly celebrated by those around me as consistency. At an advertising agency I once worked at, in fact, there was an account executive who insisted on repeating a printed grammatical error in all subsequent pieces—because to not do so would be inconsistent.

With that in mind, I offer up the following from Aldous Huxley: “Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.”

Word.

posted by Aaron Bragg
September 3, 2010

no comments  |  posted in random thoughts

Oh, to Be Normal

A couple of weeks ago I was visiting the Maryhill Museum of Art—worth the drive for the Rodin collection alone—and learned that Sam Hill, railroad executive and founder of the museum, had a rather intense friendship with Queen Marie of Romania.

I’m sure the museum’s collection of the queen’s royal memorabilia (coronation gown, crown, jewelry, etc.) is fabulous; the problem is, all that went through my mind as I toured the exhibit was this little ditty by Dorothy Parker:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania.

I proudly recited the poem to each of my kids. One responded by rolling her eyes, the other by heading for the nearest exit.

posted by Aaron Bragg
September 1, 2010

no comments  |  posted in random thoughts

“Soylent Green Is People!”

I’ve always harbored suspicions that Oregonians were a bit, well…rigorous in their adherence to green orthodoxy. But I had no idea how rigorous:

This sign, located outside Manzanita, clearly shows just how far they’re willing to go.

posted by Aaron Bragg
August 31, 2010

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Improving Our View

We’ve all seen electrical grid pylons along our highways, but how cool would it be if they actually became more interesting? The firm of Choi+Shine Architects provides an interesting solution. It’s always nice to see ordinary, everyday objects reinvented.

posted by CK Anderson
August 18, 2010

no comments  |  posted in the design life

Beating a Dead Horse

As a followup to last week’s post about beginning sentences with “and,” let me just add one last point for the benefit of those who, for whatever reason, believe that their high school English teacher is right and everyone else is wrong.

From The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition (2003):

There is a widespread belief—one with no historical or grammatical foundation—that it is an error to begin a sentence with a conjunction such as and, but, or so. In fact, a substantial percentage (often as many as 10 percent) of the sentences in first-rate writing begin with conjunctions. It has been so for centuries, and even the most conservative grammarians have followed this practice.

Had enough yet? No? Then let’s hear from Charles Allen Lloyd, from his 1938 book We Who Speak English: And Our Ignorance of Our Mother Tongue:

Next to the groundless notion that it is incorrect to end an English sentence with a preposition, perhaps the most wide-spread of the many false beliefs about the use of our language is the equally groundless notion that it is incorrect to begin one with “but” or “and.” As in the case of the superstition about the prepositional ending, no textbook supports it, but apparently about half of our teachers of English go out of their way to handicap their pupils by inculcating it. One cannot help wondering whether those who teach such a monstrous doctrine ever read any English themselves.

Now, this wouldn’t be such a big deal if so many people weren’t absolutely convinced of the veracity of the no-conjunctions-beginning-a-sentence hoax. As Lloyd suggests, to stubbornly insist on obeying such a “rule” against all evidence to the contrary is to handicap the writer. And that makes for bad writing.

There. I’m done now.

posted by Aaron Bragg
August 17, 2010

comments(2)  |  posted in the writing life

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

For those who breathlessly await each new post on the last word, I have some bad news. This Thursday, the family and I are headed to an undisclosed location to sit back and put our collective feet up for a spell. I shall return Tuesday, August 31—tanned, rested, and ready.

In the meantime, dig this: Grammar Nazi booted from Starbucks.

I sympathize with the woman, but geez-o-pete. Get a life, already.

posted by Aaron Bragg
August 16, 2010

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Marauding Pigs!

Because it’s Friday—the 13th—I bring you a chilling tale of…

…radioactive boars!

posted by Aaron Bragg
August 13, 2010

no comments  |  posted in random thoughts

“And the earth was without form, and void…”

Many, many, many times I’ve been told to not begin sentences with “and.” Or any other conjunction, for that matter. It’s one of two rules people remember from high school English class (the other being never to end your sentences with a preposition).

Both are nonsense.

Winston Churchill famously disabused us of the latter with “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” As for the former, I’ll let the late William F. Buckley, Jr. clear things up a bit.

To a correspondent who wrote in to say “Don’t start a sentence with ‘and,’” and then wondered “just how good (or bad) your high school was,” Buckley shot back a terse reminder that “verses 2-26 and 28-31, Chapter I, Genesis, all begin with ‘And.’ The King James scholars went to pretty good high schools.”

Touché.

What’s more important than scoring a cheap debating point, however, is to consider how Buckley explained his position to a subsequent correspondent:

“But my point wasn’t that the King James scholars correctly translated from the original, rather that they were the most influential writers in English history. The general rule is not to begin a sentence with “and”; the particular rule is that writers with a good ear know when to break the general rule.”

So here’s a rule worth remembering: Let your ear be your guide.

And don’t, warns Paul Brians, Emeritus Professor of English at WSU, confine English usage in a logical straitjacket.

posted by Aaron Bragg
August 11, 2010

comments(2)  |  posted in the writing life

Quote of the Day

From Thomas Merton comes this, the sort of statement that would make for a fine mantra—if I believed in the efficacy of mantras:

“If a writer is so cautious that he never writes anything that cannot be criticized, he will never write anything that can be read.”

posted by Aaron Bragg
August 10, 2010

no comments  |  posted in the writing life

Mmm…Books

Google tells us that there exist 129,864,880 different books in the world. It’s a bit daunting for the dwindling number of us who still read.

A more useful exercise might be to count how many books there are that are actually worth reading. The first step should be to remove from contention all memoirs by celebrities, athletes, and politicians. Then, we ought to cull the ridiculously overrated stuff—like Catcher in the Rye, for instance, and All the President’s Men. Finally, anything by L. Ron Hubbard.

There now. That makes our list a little more manageable, doesn’t it?

posted by Aaron Bragg
August 5, 2010

comments(1)  |  posted in random thoughts