Re: Active versus passive (WAS Displays versus Appears-Which One? )

[Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>]

Christine -dot- Anameier -at- seagate -dot- com wrote:
> 
> I taught freshman comp for a
> couple of years during grad school, and the first thing I did each term was
> ask the students to recite the "writing-teacher rules" that had been
> drilled into their heads. Then I told them to toss those rules out the
> window and write with a human voice. But some students always kept spinning
> out the standard paint-by-numbers prose they'd always been taught.

When I was teaching first year composition and going over the same
point, I often felt I was stuck in an endless loop of a scene from
"The Life of Brian": you know, the one where he tells a crowd eager
to follow him, "You're all individuals!" and it chants back as one,
"Yes, yes, we're all individuals, and then he tells them, "You've
got to work it out for yourself," and they repeat that, then ask him
how to work it out for themselves.

> And I've worked under officious bosses
> who flexed their supervisory muscles by "correcting" my grammar

As Pope said (Alexander, not Leo, Urban, or any those), a little
knowledge is a dangerous thing. In this case, the quibbles are often
used as an ad hominem attack.

> Some rules are necessary... but it seems the ones everyone remembers are
> the easy and meaningless ones. It's a lot easier to "never split an
> infinitive" (heh) than to follow the real rules, like "Be clear and
> direct," or even subjective rules like "Don't put your readers to sleep."

I wonder if part of the reason for the popularity of the false rules
is that they are easy to apply? Judging clarity or structure takes
more in-depth knowledge than, say, spotting a preposition at the end
of a sentence.

-- 
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
Contributing Editor, Maximum Linux
604.421.7189 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com

"Last and most important question: Did Valerie have time to do the
chocolate coating?"
- S. Morgenstern, "Buttercup's Baby"

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