A QUICKIE: Postings That Are Short and Sweet

SPACE COAST WRITERS' GUILD MONTHLY MEETING:  The author, Linda L. Zern, singing the praises of active review gathering for your book launch. amazon.com/author/lindazern

GRAMMAR HAPPY

Mark Twain wrote a beautiful essay about “Two Ways to See a River.” He complained that by becoming an expert at something and while you do gain knowledge, that expertise comes at the sacrifice of wonder. It’s a beautiful piece of writing because it happens to be true.

Becoming a writer with hundreds of thousands of words in your portfolio is like that. It gets harder and harder to read a book riddled with examples of author intrusion. (See! Says the author! Between the lines--sort of! What I’m telling you in this part of the story is that this is the bad guy, who is so terrible that he eats kittens! I mean it! Nod your head if you get it.) Or when an author uses an excessive use of attributes and adverbs, she interjected snidely, moistly, or urgently.

But it gets worse. You start hearing the flaws not just in the written word but also in the speechifying of regular people you’ve been married to for decades—namely spouse types.

For example:

My husband of thirty-plus years, the world-renowned computer analyst, has an expression he uses over and over again when he’s losing an argument with me. 

He likes to say, “Oh, get off it!” It’s his favorite point to my counter-point. 

All I can think when he uses this phrase during a marital tiff is that the subject ‘you’ is implied, as in, "Oh, you, get off it!"

But doesn't he know that you is a genuinely vague pronoun? So vague that I assume he’s talking to himself and not to me when he uses it. You who? Getting off of what? See the problem?

I can imagine that what he's saying in the heat of the debate is something like this. “Oh, Sherwood, get off it!”

Yeah, how about that, Sherwood? Please note: My husband's first name is Sherwood--like the forest. Crazy right? Get off of that.

And his use of the verb “get,” is also extremely weak in this sentence. Get is one of the weakest of the verbs. My advice to my husband to jazz up his prickly but vague command to me as he goes down in angry flames is to strengthen that puny verb by turning the word get into an action verb of the rip-roaring kind.

“Oh, Sherwood, drive off it!”
“Oh, Sherwood, flip off it!”
“Oh, Sherwood, fling off it!”
“Oh, Sherwood, shove off it!”

While we're at it, what about that pronoun it? What it? Who's it?

Concrete nouns are the building blocks of a rude, thorny sentence, so I’d suggest replacing that pronoun with something sharp-edged and brittle—something resembling a chunk of word cement. 

Maybe something like this:

“Oh, Sherwood, pole vault off that Saguaro cactus.” Or “Oh, Sherwood, shove off that red hot poker.” But this takes us into the land of adjectives and advanced description—and that’s a tightrope I’d rather not walk right now.

So, like Mark Twain, I’ve lost the wonder and awe of my husband’s forceful, manly instructions to me during a verbal brawl, and I can only register the grammar funk of his dopey sentence.

Thank you, Mark Twain, for helping me understand the price of knowledge. And like Mr. Twain, I appreciate the irony of loss and gain. 

“Since those days [as a riverboat captain] I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a "break" that ripples above some deadly disease? Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?” [Mark Twain, “Two Ways to See a River”]

Ahhh, Mr. Twain, those poor doctors, and computer systems analysts . . .

Linda (Grammar Witch) Zern
To Find More of Ms. Zern's Work:  amazon.com/author/lindazern

POOL RULES

Our sandbox is sometimes fifteen feet high. There are friendly goats to pet. The swings fit one to twelve children. “Hideouts” and “forts” are freely constructed and outfitted all over the property. Fun is what we do.

There are also snakes, bugs, and fire ants. Branches fall from trees. Animals stampede. Mud, muck, and swamp encroach. Thistles sting. Florida is the semi-tropics after all.

In the spirit of summer high jinks and mud hole jumping, I’ve compiled a Zern Farm release form and a list of pool rules. (Please Note: We don’t have a pool.)

THE RULES

If you come to my house, do NOT wear flip-flops. Your feet will not be protected from random piles of animal dung by your “comfortable” footwear. 

If you come to my house, do NOT wear flip-flops. Fire ants enjoy free rides on flip-flops. It’s a scientific fact.

If you come to my house, do NOT wear flip-flops. Stinging nettles, pigweed, and sand spurs do not respect your “comfortable” footwear. I do not respect your “comfortable” footwear. 

If you come to my house, do NOT wear your brand new, bedazzled superhero t-shirt. Stinging nettles, pigweed, and sand spurs grow in DIRT, which is dirty, also grubby. You will get dirty. Your clothes will get dirty. Dirt will touch you in a myriad of ways. Dress accordingly.

If you come to my house prepare to be booed if you proclaim yourself “bored.” Only boring people (or teenagers) are bored at my house. If you are bored prepare to be given a shovel or a post hole digger and put to work.

If you come to my house prepare to be hot. It’s Florida. Duh.

If you come to my house, understand that animals will be roaming about doing what animals do. Yes, my buck goat stinks. He stinks for a reason. He is not confused as to his gender or life’s work. He lives to eat and make little goats.

If you come to my house be aware that tree bark is scratchy, tree climbing not without hazard, and chiggers live in tree moss. Bring Bandaids.

Random Warnings: 

BEWARE! THE YAYA BITES. 

Don’t make me traumatize you! 

Fight at your own risk.

And if you turn over something to look for worms or beetles or other wiggly creatures then, when you are done, turn that log, stepping stone, or lawn chair back over. Leave things the way you found them.

Sincerely, The Management

Linda (Sharp-Tooth) Zern