Defense secretary Caspar Weinberger, assessing a polish crisis in 1984, said: “There is continuing ground for serious concern and the situation remains serious. The longer he remains serious more ground there is for serious concern.” (查看原文)
One (*my note:simplification for the readers)is craft, the other(*my note: writing for yourself) is attitude. The first is a question of mastering a precise skill; the second is a question of how you use the skill to express your personality. (查看原文)
I would put brackets around every component in a piece of writing that wasn't doing useful work. Often just one word got bracketed: the unnecessary preposition appended to a verb ("order up"）， or the adverb that carries the same meaning as the verb ("smile happily"), or the adjective that states a known fact ("tall skyscraper") . Often my brackets surrounded the little qualifiers that weaken any sentence they inhabit ("a bit","sort of "), or phrase like "in a sense," which don't mean anything. (查看原文)
Take a class of writing students in a liberal arts college and assign them to write about some aspect of science, and a pitiful moan will go around the room. "No! Not science!" the moan says. The students have a common affliction: fear of science. They were told at an early age by a chemistry or a physics teacher that they don't have "a head for science."
Take an adult chemist or physicist or engineer and ask him or her to write a report, and you'll see something close to panic. "No! Don't make us write!" they say. They also have a common affliction: fear of writing. They were told at an early age by an English teacher that they don't have “a gift for words”. (查看原文)
A reporter once asked Joe DiMaggio how he managed to play so well so consistently, and he said: "I always thought that there was at least one person in the stands who had never seen me play, and I didn't want to let him down. (查看原文)
MOUNT RUSHMORE: “In the afternoon when the sunlight throws the shadows into that socket,” one of the rangers, Fred Banks said, “you feel that the eyes of those four men are looking at you, no matter where you move. They’re peering right into your mind, wondering what you’re thinking, making you feel guilty: ‘Are you doing your part?’ ” (查看原文)
“I don’t think children are too young to appreciate what that ship represents,” Magee told me. “They’ll remember it if they see the leaking oil — if they see that the ship is still bleeding.” (查看原文)
Beware, then, of the long word thats no better than the short word assistance"(help)
numerous"(many), " facilitate" (ease), individual(man or woman) remainder"(rest) initial"(first),"implement" (do),"sufficient"(enough), attempt"(try), 'referred to as" (called)and hundreds more. (查看原文)
Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society
strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous
frills and meaningless jargon. (查看原文)
