How To Write A Sentence.

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

HOW TO WRITE A SENTENCE by Stanley Fish.

Fish is a lawyer and english perfesser and columnist for the New York TIMES.

His little book is offered as a how-to-write manual but is more like a dumpster filled with coffee grounds and cellophane wrappers and crusty sanitary napkins. There are a couple of dandy points in the book but it wont do much for your sentences. It isnt a recipe book.

To wit, knowing all the positions on a baseball team doesnt make you wise about the game. But he has two good points buried in all the garbage (he loves Gertrude Stein and her hostility for punctuation): #1, WAX ON, WAX OFF. Practice the forms for good sentences until your pencil is a nub. #2, Fill a notebook with great sentences you discover, and study them.

After I read this book I understood why Fish is a perfesser; he prolly confuses the crap out of judges and jurors with his word salad of loose associations and tangential points.

 

[sr71plt]

After I read this book I understood why Fish is a perfesser; he prolly confuses the crap out of judges and jurors with his word salad of loose associations and tangential points.

And, being a "perfesser," he must be a liberal Democrat to boot. So, let's crucify him.

 

[estragon]

If I've found the same Stanley Fish, he is said to be, among other things, Davidson-Kahn Distinguished Univ. Prof. and Prof. of Law, Florida Intl. Univ., and Dean Emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Distinguished Prof. of English, Criminal Justice and Political Science at the Univ. of Illinois, Chicago.

Now JEJ, what are your qualifications and accomplishments, if any?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

If I've found the same Stanley Fish, he is said to be, among other things, Davidson-Kahn Distinguished Univ. Prof. and Prof. of Law, Florida Intl. Univ., and Dean Emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Distinguished Prof. of English, Criminal Justice and Political Science at the Univ. of Illinois, Chicago.

Now JEJ, what are your qualifications and accomplishments, if any?

ESTROGEN

I know that nobody but a silly son of a bitch reads Gertrude Stein if they can avoid it. Ditto for John Updike. Fish reads Updike, too...pathetic and sad.

 

[sr71plt]

He's stayed in a Holiday Inn.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

He's stayed in a Holiday Inn.

I worked at a Holiday Inn! Working there adds a patina that whispers, OLD MASTER. Spending a night merely makes you clever.

 

[oggbashan]

According to Sir Ernest Gowers, writer of manuals for Plain English, one of the most perfect sentences ever written by government officials was the notice that used to be displayed pre-war in all UK Post Offices:

The Postmaster is not required to give change nor authorised to demand it.

Sir Ernest thought that the sentence summed up the dilemma of cash transactions.

Og

 

[sr71plt]

I thought the perfect sentence was "I am."