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Re: Active versus passive (WAS Displays versus Appears-Which One? )
Subject:Re: Active versus passive (WAS Displays versus Appears-Which One? ) From:Jo Francis Byrd <jbyrd -at- byrdwrites -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 20 Dec 2000 15:18:13 -0600
Way back "when" in one of my library science courses, our teacher went into a
discussion about the importance of reading well written books - and getting
children to read the better written books.
"Read enough good books," she said, "the ones with good plot, good character
development, and the bad ones 'hurt your ears'."
She was right. Read a badly written book and you end up cringing. At some point
you assimilate good language (we are borg, we will assimilate you....) and your
instinctively know what's bad and what's good, even if you don't know why.
Jo Byrd
Susan Ahrenhold wrote:
> Al Miller noted that:
>
> Good writers have a good ear for language. I suspect (I'm not a linguist, just
> an interested bystander) this leads one to instinctively write correctly
> (whatever that means) because it *sounds* right.
>
> This brings an interesting point, which is that, while I try not to be be a
> "grammar nazi," some sentences HURT to hear, just like a clinker when
> listening to the symphony. It's not that I think other people are stupid, or
> ignorant, it's an intuitive "Can't they HEAR how bad that sounds?"
>
> Maybe my ears are more doglike than I thought ;>)
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