I teach writing this semester
0 Comments Published by ginny on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 2:29 AM.
Things I've been having a problem with lately:
1. The phrase: "the fact that." I recognize that it can be very hard to get around this phrase. Sometimes you really need a transition to a new element of a story or question, and it's nearly impossible to get to it any other way. You can end up doing something longer like "But, Senator, you haven't addressed the way in which 'surge' may seem to be simply a synonym for 'escalation,' but it's much quicker (and often seems to pack more of a punch) to say "But Senator, you haven't addressed the fact that 'surge' may seem to be simply a synonym for escalation.'" Oo. He's caught. It's a FACT that surge is just like escalation. How is he going to get out of that one? (Not that I really want him to.)
And yet. And yet. The "fact" of "the fact that" is that it always seems to me to be protesting too much. It's often used to claim things as "facts" that aren't precisely facts. They may be more like impressions, or details, or elements, or something. Not facts, exactly. Not pieces of data or conclusions verified by proven laws or postulates. Whenever I hear "the fact that," I think someone is being too strenuous, too bombastic, and, in fact, too lazy. Don't just go around claiming that the thing you want to bring up next is a "fact." That's patently sloppy argument, and I don't like to hear it.
Almost always, the correct substitution for "the fact that" is something like "the way in which," which probably makes one sound unpleasantly intellectual but, well. I suppose I am unpleasantly intellectual. And that's a fact.
2. USING "FOR" AS A GODDAMN COORDINATING CONJUNCTION!!!!!!! People! Do not do this! Do not fucking DO this! It makes you sound as if you are the sort of person who makes a web page festooned with blood-red roses and unreadable scrolly-script that plays organ music upon opening, and the subject of which is your dreadful "medieval-vampire-byron-type poetry." Here are some examples:
1a. He gazed soulfully at her with his eyes full of blood-tears, for his heart was full of longing.
2a.He picked up the stapler, for he needed to staple something.
Notice how the totally innocuous second sentence sounds almost exactly like the obnoxious first sentence, simply because of the nasty use of FOR? I hope you do! Because you'd better!
"For" should only really be used as a preposition these days. "I bought eggs for the cake;" "He did the work for his boss;" "I get all upset for nothing because this is never going to change." The use as a coordinating conjunction, while not technically incorrect, is by now archaic to the point of foolishness, at least in most cases. It typically makes a sentence sound as if it is consciously and ham-fistedly attempting to be "old-fashioned," and while I usually have no quarrel with archaism, in this case it's simply inelegant. In most cases where people use "for" ineptly, they'd be better off either substituting the prosaic, but strong, "because" or simply separating their independent clauses into two sentences. Here's an example from the Patricia Cornwell novel I read today (yes, I'm attempting to keep myself suspended from the real world as long as possible, but Ms. Cornwell is not helping with her bad writing):
"This was all rather strange to see, for I was accustomed to arcane instruments like scanning electron microscopes" (Cause of Death 226). This is by no means the most egregious example in this book (I suspect, actually, the second half of it may have been published unedited), but it still shows you how "for" makes the sentence even more awkward than it already is. (Let's disregard the use of "arcane" for a completely ordinary laboratory instrument like a scanning electron microscope. I think what Cornwell actually means is "complicated.") As it stands, the sentence sounds awkward. Stilted. Not like real dialogue at all, and painfully forced. I can fix it though, largely by emending the nasty for-as-coordinating-conjunction problem. See:
"This all seemed strange, since I was used to complicated instruments like scanning electron microscopes." Even stronger: "The FBI's lab seemed strangely, even creepily streamlined: I was used to big, clunky, complicated instruments like scanning electron microscopes. Here they did everything with the touch of a button."
Of course, my second revision takes very large liberties with the sentence (and I'm drawing from context in the novel, which I have unfairly omitted from this essay), but I hope we can agree that in both cases, the sentence is stronger for [strong usage] the omission of conjunction-for. You could even strengthen it (though it would still, in my opinion, be clunky), by simply substituting "because." Vide:
"This was all rather strange to see, because I was used to arcane instruments" -- it's still stronger.
I've also taken issue, you might notice, with the use of "rather." I don't hate it quite as much as I hate "for," but I think if you're not using it ironically, you're running into the danger of sounding like a prissy idiot.
1. The phrase: "the fact that." I recognize that it can be very hard to get around this phrase. Sometimes you really need a transition to a new element of a story or question, and it's nearly impossible to get to it any other way. You can end up doing something longer like "But, Senator, you haven't addressed the way in which 'surge' may seem to be simply a synonym for 'escalation,' but it's much quicker (and often seems to pack more of a punch) to say "But Senator, you haven't addressed the fact that 'surge' may seem to be simply a synonym for escalation.'" Oo. He's caught. It's a FACT that surge is just like escalation. How is he going to get out of that one? (Not that I really want him to.)
And yet. And yet. The "fact" of "the fact that" is that it always seems to me to be protesting too much. It's often used to claim things as "facts" that aren't precisely facts. They may be more like impressions, or details, or elements, or something. Not facts, exactly. Not pieces of data or conclusions verified by proven laws or postulates. Whenever I hear "the fact that," I think someone is being too strenuous, too bombastic, and, in fact, too lazy. Don't just go around claiming that the thing you want to bring up next is a "fact." That's patently sloppy argument, and I don't like to hear it.
Almost always, the correct substitution for "the fact that" is something like "the way in which," which probably makes one sound unpleasantly intellectual but, well. I suppose I am unpleasantly intellectual. And that's a fact.
2. USING "FOR" AS A GODDAMN COORDINATING CONJUNCTION!!!!!!! People! Do not do this! Do not fucking DO this! It makes you sound as if you are the sort of person who makes a web page festooned with blood-red roses and unreadable scrolly-script that plays organ music upon opening, and the subject of which is your dreadful "medieval-vampire-byron-type poetry." Here are some examples:
1a. He gazed soulfully at her with his eyes full of blood-tears, for his heart was full of longing.
2a.He picked up the stapler, for he needed to staple something.
Notice how the totally innocuous second sentence sounds almost exactly like the obnoxious first sentence, simply because of the nasty use of FOR? I hope you do! Because you'd better!
"For" should only really be used as a preposition these days. "I bought eggs for the cake;" "He did the work for his boss;" "I get all upset for nothing because this is never going to change." The use as a coordinating conjunction, while not technically incorrect, is by now archaic to the point of foolishness, at least in most cases. It typically makes a sentence sound as if it is consciously and ham-fistedly attempting to be "old-fashioned," and while I usually have no quarrel with archaism, in this case it's simply inelegant. In most cases where people use "for" ineptly, they'd be better off either substituting the prosaic, but strong, "because" or simply separating their independent clauses into two sentences. Here's an example from the Patricia Cornwell novel I read today (yes, I'm attempting to keep myself suspended from the real world as long as possible, but Ms. Cornwell is not helping with her bad writing):
"This was all rather strange to see, for I was accustomed to arcane instruments like scanning electron microscopes" (Cause of Death 226). This is by no means the most egregious example in this book (I suspect, actually, the second half of it may have been published unedited), but it still shows you how "for" makes the sentence even more awkward than it already is. (Let's disregard the use of "arcane" for a completely ordinary laboratory instrument like a scanning electron microscope. I think what Cornwell actually means is "complicated.") As it stands, the sentence sounds awkward. Stilted. Not like real dialogue at all, and painfully forced. I can fix it though, largely by emending the nasty for-as-coordinating-conjunction problem. See:
"This all seemed strange, since I was used to complicated instruments like scanning electron microscopes." Even stronger: "The FBI's lab seemed strangely, even creepily streamlined: I was used to big, clunky, complicated instruments like scanning electron microscopes. Here they did everything with the touch of a button."
Of course, my second revision takes very large liberties with the sentence (and I'm drawing from context in the novel, which I have unfairly omitted from this essay), but I hope we can agree that in both cases, the sentence is stronger for [strong usage] the omission of conjunction-for. You could even strengthen it (though it would still, in my opinion, be clunky), by simply substituting "because." Vide:
"This was all rather strange to see, because I was used to arcane instruments" -- it's still stronger.
I've also taken issue, you might notice, with the use of "rather." I don't hate it quite as much as I hate "for," but I think if you're not using it ironically, you're running into the danger of sounding like a prissy idiot.
Labels: anger, reading, the_profession, writing
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