tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4905080602885676490.post415919014779735889..comments2024-03-27T20:34:09.464+01:00Comments on zmkc: Absent No Longerzmkchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08972549292961948240noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4905080602885676490.post-39019025537752313332013-09-24T01:58:36.401+02:002013-09-24T01:58:36.401+02:00Horrid - but funny - Julie Burchill described Step...Horrid - but funny - Julie Burchill described Stephen Fry as a stupid person's idea of a clever person, which was, of course, very mean.zmkchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972549292961948240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4905080602885676490.post-55577238560667871392013-09-23T15:20:57.208+02:002013-09-23T15:20:57.208+02:00I agree. In a lesson after I last posted, I told t...I agree. In a lesson after I last posted, I told the kids that the middle line of all of this is important: if I am feeling a constant "tapping of the brakes" as I read, I am losing connection with the writer's ideas. Fry's contempt is over-done, for sure. And the fact remains that if a grocer advertises "Apple's: $1.99 per pound," I am still left with a tangle in my head -- wondering, sarcastically, what thing thatg belongs to apples could possibily be worth $1.99. It simply doesn't help.Chris Matarazzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17885109959459471509noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4905080602885676490.post-28872100245193436722013-09-22T05:26:00.845+02:002013-09-22T05:26:00.845+02:00I think I'm really responding to sloppiness - ...I think I'm really responding to sloppiness - the eye can read really badly misspelt things and so forth. However, if you are given a job, you should do it really well - and that includes the job of copy editor. I also like a sentence that reads smoothly and unambiguously so that meaning is conveyed to a reader without their thoughts getting snagged on the conveyers of meaning rather than the meaning itself, if that makes sense. So there's two things going on for me: 1. Just a general sense that standards need to be striven for as a general rule, if we expect the world around us to work well; and 2. a feeling that words are just symbols and the better they are arranged and punctuated the easier it is to penetrate beyond them directly to meaning, rather than being stuck in a barbed wire tangle of the words themselves.zmkchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972549292961948240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4905080602885676490.post-40314836484322854482013-09-20T15:59:18.055+02:002013-09-20T15:59:18.055+02:00Very interesting that I just posted what follows, ...Very interesting that I just posted what follows, by Stephen Fry, on my writing class website. Have you seen it? Fry takes quite a harsh position against pedantry. I'm using this for discussion, of course; I find myself somewhere in the middle of things. Often, I shrug off the rules on purpose for various effects. I also suppose there are some rules I don't know, but heaven help me if I see a sign advertising "Gala Apple's" when I have a Sharpie in my possession... Anyway, here is the link to Fry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY I fear it may anger you -- especially because it assumes that those who demand high standards of grammar and style don't revel in the joy of language and sound (which is simply not a consistent -- or even very supportable -- fact). Chris Matarazzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17885109959459471509noreply@blogger.com