Monday, March 28, 2022

Be a Bird

“Punctuation matters. In fact, sometimes it’s the life or death of a sentence. Hyphens. Full stops. Colons. Semicolons. Ellipses. Parentheses. They’re the containers of a sentence. They scaffold your words.” . . .

“But then again, a sentence can be over-examined. Good grammar can slow a sentence — or indeed a wheelbarrow — down.” . . .

“Sometimes we make a mistake on purpose. . . . On occasion we write a sentence that isn’t, in fact, correct, but it sings. And the question is: would you rather be the ornithologist or the bird?”

—Colum McCann, novelist, “So you want to be a writer? Essential tips for aspiring novelists,” The Guardian, May 13, 2017.



 

 

 

 

• Editorial Comment: As a writer, I’m kind of wingless and flightless and nearly extinct — like a Dodo.

 

 

PeezPIX 

Look Who’s Laughing! in the April issue of Senior News. HAHAHahahahahaha

 

 

 

 

 

 

FREE! TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM This free “service” is sent to rafts of subscribers worldwide more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. If you have recovered from whatever illness led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: Don’t shoot the messenger. I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em.)

 
“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.”Tom Stoppard

_____________
Edward C. Pease
, Ph.D.
Professor & Department Head Emeritus
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Today's WORD on Journalism

 


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