Chandler’s split infinitive comment reminded me how a teacher used Star Trek as an example of a split infinitive that sounded good to the ear….to boldly go…. And your example of still life vs. cubist or drip is excellent! You’ve read me, so you know I break rules once I learn them, but unfortunately my grasp of grammar never came in English classes, but later in my college German courses. My first sentence ever diagrammed was at the age of 18. Great piece, once again, friend!
I actually think the best way to learn grammar is by learning another language, so that sounds right to me. And, yes, you have created Trilety's grammar rules, a distinct language, but that's partly what creates your voice on the page. Thank you for the comment, Trilety.
Great essay and I loved Chandler’s letter to The Atlantic. Breaking the rules of writing makes me think of painters who break the rules. I always feel better when I can see from the artist’s earlier work that they understood perspective, values, form, composition, etc, before going off the deep end. Picasso’s early representational work shows he could draw and paint realistically before he deconstructed figures and life into cubes and such. Similarly, I concur with Hemingway that a writer should know the rules first, before artfully breaking them. I’m sure Proust or Joyce knew what a run-on sentence was but found artful utility in stream of consciousness prose.
I was in a gallery last week and spent a good ten minutes looking at a Picasso canvas that fits your example. The longer I stared, the more I could see the technique. At first, the painting seemed fairly straightforward, but the amount of precision in the figures, the amount of structure in their stances, wasn't at all incidental. Thank you for the comment, John.
Would love to hear your thoughts on how one acquires the judgement, maybe even the feel, of knowing when a rule must be adhered to and when a rule can be transgressed. Is it something that only develops over time, with experience?
Thank you for the comment and kind words, Rohan. This is something that I think about regularly. Perhaps my answer is a little predictable but I do think it fits. Reading everything, both good and bad, both fiction and non, and endlessly asking questions about why a particular paragraph works or doesn't work, is probably the best way to figure out how sentences are constructed. I think you can get to a point where you even enjoy badly-written books—because there is still so much to discover about what's gone wrong. What happens if you spend a few years or a decade looking at every sentence with questions in your mind: Why did the writer do that? Could they have done it better? What made that sentence effective? This, for me, seems like the best strategy, especially when that's combined with writing in the same way. (Incidentally, although the idea of endless questioning may seem like work to some people, I find that this engagement is the most enjoyable way to read.)
Chandler’s split infinitive comment reminded me how a teacher used Star Trek as an example of a split infinitive that sounded good to the ear….to boldly go…. And your example of still life vs. cubist or drip is excellent! You’ve read me, so you know I break rules once I learn them, but unfortunately my grasp of grammar never came in English classes, but later in my college German courses. My first sentence ever diagrammed was at the age of 18. Great piece, once again, friend!
I actually think the best way to learn grammar is by learning another language, so that sounds right to me. And, yes, you have created Trilety's grammar rules, a distinct language, but that's partly what creates your voice on the page. Thank you for the comment, Trilety.
Haha thank you!
Great essay and I loved Chandler’s letter to The Atlantic. Breaking the rules of writing makes me think of painters who break the rules. I always feel better when I can see from the artist’s earlier work that they understood perspective, values, form, composition, etc, before going off the deep end. Picasso’s early representational work shows he could draw and paint realistically before he deconstructed figures and life into cubes and such. Similarly, I concur with Hemingway that a writer should know the rules first, before artfully breaking them. I’m sure Proust or Joyce knew what a run-on sentence was but found artful utility in stream of consciousness prose.
I was in a gallery last week and spent a good ten minutes looking at a Picasso canvas that fits your example. The longer I stared, the more I could see the technique. At first, the painting seemed fairly straightforward, but the amount of precision in the figures, the amount of structure in their stances, wasn't at all incidental. Thank you for the comment, John.
Makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Charles.
Excellent essay, Charles.
Would love to hear your thoughts on how one acquires the judgement, maybe even the feel, of knowing when a rule must be adhered to and when a rule can be transgressed. Is it something that only develops over time, with experience?
Thank you for the comment and kind words, Rohan. This is something that I think about regularly. Perhaps my answer is a little predictable but I do think it fits. Reading everything, both good and bad, both fiction and non, and endlessly asking questions about why a particular paragraph works or doesn't work, is probably the best way to figure out how sentences are constructed. I think you can get to a point where you even enjoy badly-written books—because there is still so much to discover about what's gone wrong. What happens if you spend a few years or a decade looking at every sentence with questions in your mind: Why did the writer do that? Could they have done it better? What made that sentence effective? This, for me, seems like the best strategy, especially when that's combined with writing in the same way. (Incidentally, although the idea of endless questioning may seem like work to some people, I find that this engagement is the most enjoyable way to read.)