My Writing Style

Boyntonville, the two things that strike me when reading my own writing is that the flow of the words often seems awkward. I want to learn the "music" of the language a little better.

The other issue is a tendency towards opacity. One poster has already given me enormous help by noting a tendency towards leading the reader down the garden path; other such observations are both welcome and solicited.

What seems gay to Americans is standard across the Atlantic.

Do British guys ever admit to liking both "Wuthering Heights" and women?

I question your motives for this thread since, by its very nature, style is subjective. There is no "honest truth" about it, just opinion. Your posts are usually intelligent, though you go out of your way to make sure everyone realizes that you sympathize a great deal with Britain and are not a "dumb American." Maybe you just cannot define your style and are hoping the posters here can.

"dumb American"

That's tautology. It should be avoided in writing.

^ Guest, now we know your opinions about Americans aren't kind. That's OK, but that's not the information being requested.

Entbark: I'm not happy with the flow of my words, which often seems awkward to me, and I'm looking for tips on how to improve it.

I agree with the comments on Damian's writing style. Personally I often skip his posts because I do not find them very interesting. I have noticed a lot of Scottish people deliberately use colloquial expressions and unusual words. This part of an effort to establish a separate identity and also to keep various aspects of the language alive. I think that it is quite brave to write in a colloquial style because you will not get any help from spell and grammar checkers and a lot of colloquial expressions are only half remembered. It is rather like someone speaking clearly and articulately in a regional accent.

I am personally convinced that Damian is developing journalistic style. I cannot recall such wordy articles by Jasper.

Personally, I ignore a lot of Damian and Travis's posts. I ignore Damian's not because I dislike his style, but because the content is so often irrelevant to the discussion. As for Travis, his bizarre style is something that I have yet to see elsewhere and it is that which turns me away from his posts.

Jasper, you write very politely. You strike me as educated, mild-mannered, and cerebral. Might be a touch of southern gentleman in there. I don't personally think there's anything wrong with it, but I wonder if you're worrying that you come off a little bland, or a little on the formal side.

I figure most people's writing style is either a reflection of their true personality or a projection of their internet persona. Your style is very careful, and looks like you go back and edit it meticulously for content, tone, grammar, and spelling. It's more thought-out than spontaneous. A lot of the sentences are of similar lengths, and you use a lot of passive voice. Even your references to yourself are so modest that you practically disappear as the object.

Imagine this passage:

"The other issue is a tendency towards opacity. One poster has already given me enormous help by noting a tendency towards leading the reader down the garden path; other such observations are both welcome and solicited."

rewritten so:

"The other issue is a tendency to be opaque. One poster has already given me enormous help by noting that I have a tendency to lead the reader down the garden path; other such observations are welcome and I solicit them."

That style would come off as being subtly more assertive because you would appear to take a more active role with your verbs.

I don't know that that's something you necessarily need to aspire to, but it illustrates the range of expressive options open to you. It's up to you to determine why you make the choices you do, and if they reflect what you want to express.

I sort of just write the way I talk. When I get going I tend to have a lot of run-on sentences that I have to go back and wrestle back into shape. More than four commas and I need to do some pruning. I also occasionally allow myself sentences like the last one, or sentences that start with "and" or "but", because I was always taught that once you know the rules of formal writing, you are qualified to modify them for effect or mood.

I also try to write for my audience: if I am replying to a learner's question I try to edit out colloquialisms or turns of phrase that might be difficult for a non-native speaker to follow. I don't go totally formal, because I think it's good for them to "hear" how a native speaker might actually talk. But if I'm talking to fellow native speakers I adopt a more conversational style. Which is probably why I enjoy reading Damian's posts; he has a very natural style that packs a lot of his own character into each post, in such a way that you can "hear" his "voice" (if not his actual accent). And since he IS a journalist in real life, you are correct, Robin Michael.

As for using a lot of dialect-specific terms, that's what many of us are hear for; to savor the flavors of all the many varieties of English speech that are out there. I've been told that my posts sound inherently American; Damian sounds very Scottish. Some of it might be for effect and to highlight his own sense of identity, but it may also be very much how he talks in everyday life -- and we've had quite a few discussions about linguistic identity and the social dimensions of one's speech on this forum. Languages are alive and serve the needs of living people; they aren't just abstractions of syntax and vocabulary on a page. They also convey information about culture, personality, attitudes, and outlooks. Most of that is entirely subjective, and therefore it'll fascinate some reader and put off others. Robin Michael and I are probably pulling very different types of information out of Damian's posts and processing them according to very different models. That's the beauty of subtext.

Uriel, that analysis, worth its weight in gold, was exactly what I was looking for. Your analysis of my personality was very accurate—almost embarrassingly so, to be honest. I never knew that my writing revealed my personality so clearly.

I assess your writing as being that of an erudite woman of a strong, vital temperament, who probably doesn't suffer fools very gladly—a personality similar to Gloria Steinem, perhaps. It's a distinguished-enough writing style that I think I would still recognize it if you were to post under a different nom de plume.

Is this analysis accurate?

By the way, I agree with your analysis of Damian's posts. His friendly, sometimes banal chatter is warm and comforting to the senses, somehow. He seems to be a most delightful person to get to know in the real world.

<<Uriel, that analysis, worth its weight in gold, was exactly what I was looking for. Your analysis of my personality was very accurate—almost embarrassingly so, to be honest. I never knew that my writing revealed my personality so clearly. >>

We all let on more than we know sometimes, huh? Don't be embarrassed -- your ability to create a measured, intelligent, and carefully considered post is a rarity on many forums, and a pleasure to read, because you always know when you see a "Jasper" post that it will have something worth reading in it. The gravity goes hand in hand with good content, and is nothing to be ashamed of.



<<I assess your writing as being that of an erudite woman of a strong, vital temperament, who probably doesn't suffer fools very gladly—a personality similar to Gloria Steinem, perhaps. It's a distinguished-enough writing style that I think I would still recognize it if you were to post under a different nom de plume.>>


You flatterer, you! Most of my friends would simply that say I'm a little blunt sometimes. Those not so well disposed toward me just call me a smartass. But yeah, I think I write the same way on every forum, and I'm not hard to pick out -- I always have the same nickname.

If you omit A, the concession, your statement will be strongly in favour of Damian's writing:

‹Some of the other posters have suggested that Damian's prose is too wordy, to the point of floridity, for their taste—a conclusion with which I don't agree: I look forward to reading Damian's posts.›

If you omit C, the reply to the objection, you will seem to doubt your own respect for Damian's writing:

‹While I respect Damian's writing as much as you do, some of the other posters have suggested that his prose is too wordy, to the point of floridity, for their taste.›

I have not read many of your posts. In those I have read, I have not noticed a tendency to garden-path. Generally, I agree with Uriel's assessment.

I don't really have any suggestions on your overall style; other than my first comment, I pretty much only have nitpicks.

<<I don't want any of you to worry about hurting my feelings (like an American)>>
It is rather unclear how the parenthetical comment is supposed to modify the rest of the sentence. The first read-through I kinda got the impression that you were saying that Americans' feelings are easily hurt, and that you're not like that, but after I re-read it, I think you meant to say "I (like an American) don't want..." Keep in mind that putting something in parentheses just changes the amount of emphasis given to it, not its grammatical function. Parentheses mean "give this part of the sentence less weight than the rest of the sentence; it's not as important", not "this part of the sentence actually should be somewhere else". Sometimes, there's just no good way to write a sentence without using parentheses in the latter sense, but for the most part, your sentence shouldn't have a completely different meaning when the parentheses are removed.

<<Guest, I was not looking for anti-Americanism. Your statement tends to suggest that only people who're born in the UK are capable of good writing, which is a conclusion I most vigorously dispute. >>
It's not a conclusion. A conclusion is a position arrived at the end of a some sort of reasoning. His is merely a prejudice.

<<—a conclusion with which I don't agree: I look forward to reading Damian's posts.>>
Should be a semicolon rather than a colon. Also, again, you are misusing the word "conclusion". Here, you should use the word "view".

<<My correspondent Travis writes most often in Academic Regalian—a "dialect" that is seen as expert, if overly formal to some tastes. >>
Should be a comma after "formal".

Another guest, thank you for your input.

<<"but after I re-read it, I think you meant to say "I (like an American) don't want..."" >>

The point I wanted to convey is that oftentimes Americans will not tell you the truth because they don't want to hurt your feelings. I didn't want anyone to do that—I wanted the unvarnished truth.

<<It's not a conclusion. A conclusion is a position arrived at the end of a some sort of reasoning. His is merely a prejudice. >>

Point taken.

<Should be a semicolon rather than a colon. Also, again, you are misusing the word "conclusion". Here, you should use the word "view".>

Wouldn't a dash, rather than a semicolon, be more effective? Using a semicolon, there would be something wrong with the "feel".

<Should be a comma after "formal".>

I don't think I agree with you on this one. The use of a comma makes the prose sound "choppy".

Anotherguest, are you the same person who previously posted under @Jasper?

If you are, do you think I'm spending too much time worrying about the flow of the sentences, rather than paying atttention to the rules of good sentence writing?

Anotherguest, I have come up with a tentative rewording of the first sentence. How does this sound?

"I don't want any of you to worry about hurting my feelings, like an American would."

No, that doesn't work, either, because it's ambiguous.

How about this one?

"I don't want any of you to worry—like an American—about hurting my feelings."

Nope; the flow of the words sounds wrong.

I give up. How would you word the sentence?