Today I had a minor crisis. It was an identity crisis more than anything but it was also linguistic. In light of the realization that I will most likely never write "well" in French (precious few French people can), I suffered a temporary fervor for my waning English skills and nearly determined to never abuse the English language again. Fortunately I restrained this pharisaic tendency and didn't make any rash vows.
Most notably, I didn't vow to never again start a sentence with a conjunction. This habit started innocently enough in college as my journalistic zeal for concise communication merged with the liberty of "creative writing." I have always disliked having to start a sentence with "However," "Furthermore," or their ilk. It feels far too early in a sentence to introduce a comma. The reader has only begun when *lurch* they have to shift up and coast through the yield sign. I like to at least have a prepositional phrase to justify the appearance of a comma. Therefore, I started commencing my phrases with "but" and "and".
It was stylistic. I only did it once in a while. Now it has gotten out of hand. I started with the occasional one; now I sometimes smoke a whole pack in one blog post. That is why, as I stood in the shower and pondered the decline of my English vocabulary and usage, I nearly vowed to remove conjunctive beginnings from my stylistic arsenal. Fortunately reason intervened somewhere between the shampooing and the towel. I decided to guard that quirk, along with many others that I have developed, because in some cases they have value. However, from now on I will be using them with more thought and care.
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2 comments:
Man, I really enjoy your posts, though I don't know how you find the time to blog so much! On the other hand, I do know that if I started blogging more often, my posts would get much shorter and thus blogging would be less work!
I can relate to this post on many levels. While writing for a campus magazine in college, I learned that journalism can really influence you to give up correct construction in favor of concise communication and attention-getting.
Additionally, spending a lot of time in your second language can really mess you up. Toward the end of my time in Ecuador my blog posts started to sound like the writing of an English language learner. Some of my stringy or backward sentences reminded me more of Yoda than anyone else, actually!
Have a good day! Christina
Wow.... rare form, sir.... rare form.... I laughed almost the whole way through, but I love your creative use of similes and the like. I enjoy the creative writing quirkiness-es..... :D
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