Grammar and the engineering mind

Source: photo taken by the author.

Are you a linear thinker? Do you have what I like to call an "engineering mind" accustomed to tracking logical propositions from A to B to C? If so, then that bodes well for you -- both in college and in life. However, one thing I've noticed is that students with highly developed, logical, engineering mindsets sometimes chafe at the "rules" of grammar. This is probably because language (and certainly the English language) was not developed as a system, but instead grew out of usage, from people interacting and communicating with each other. (The "rules" were applied after-the-fact). Thus, language developed (and continues to develop) organically and dynamically like a living organism. As such, it is more akin to biology than physics.

When a young child learns about past tense words that end in the -ed suffix -- talked, walked, borrowed, etc. -- the child will (very logically) follow this system and come up with words like "goed" instead of “went” and "buyed" instead of “bought.” Past tense verbs like “went” and “bought” are the infamous irregular verbs we all memorized as schoolchildren. But why are they irregular? Certainly, no logical (or even sane) person would decide that we should have a few exceptions to the rule "just because." Understanding the history of words will help. The modern word “went,” for example, was originally the past tense of the Middle English word "wenden" and later the archaic-sounding English verb “to wend” (meaning to follow a course or travel or go), but over time it has become the past tense of “go,” and so poor “goed” was left off the trip.

Everyday verbal language (unlike a mathematical or computer language) never springs from an entirely logical system. In fact, years ago some linguists got together and tried to invent an artificial international language from scratch. You can look it up today. It’s called Esperanto. Nobody uses it.

So if you possess an “engineering mind” and always seek logical connections, you need to familiarize yourself with the historical development of the English language. Do that and the irregularities should start to make more sense.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Stuff it in your desk drawer!

Source: photo taken by the author.

How can you tell if something you've written has real staying power and lasting value? Perhaps you've heard writers talk about the fabled “desk drawer.” If given the luxury of time, writers can set aside their early drafts (by, for example, putting them in a desk drawer) and then pull them out months -- maybe even years -- later to look at them with “fresh eyes” for revision. Basically, the extended time away turns you into a different reader than you were while writing the first draft, and you are sure to identify areas for improvement that you overlooked in the heat of first-draft creation. Of course, a daily newspaper writer on deadline does not enjoy this luxury of time (even less today, in the era of 24-hour internet news). Nor, certainly, does a student scratching out an essay within a time limit for a “writing on demand” standardized test.

This “desk drawer” theory applies to reading as well as writing. Spending “time away” from a book and then re-reading it will tell you whether or not it’s a worthy book. Should you find yourself later in life re-reading a book you either loved or hated in school, you will sometimes discover you now hold the opposite of your former opinion about it. That’s not because the book has changed, but because you have. A substantial chunk of life experience has made you a different person … and a different reader. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus put it, we never step in the same river twice. The current has irrevocably changed the river just as time has altered us.

Sometimes, however, a book holds up and continues to impress us throughout the stages of our life. These books are the keepers. For example, when I was a teenager, my brother-in-law left an old copy of the science magazine Omni at our family home. Bored one day, I picked it up to read and was drawn into the novella “Sandkings” by George R.R. Martin (probably due to an accompanying illustration). I recall tearing through the pages of this gripping science fiction/horror tale, completely unable to stop reading. Years later, I stumbled across the same story -- now out of print -- in an anthology of award-winning science fiction tales. Re-reading Martin’s story as an adult, I was still captivated. Today, using a battered photocopy, I teach “Sandkings” at the start of every school year as a “can’t miss” story. Even the most reluctant readers will be swept up by its suspense and startling imagery. “Sandkings” is a little known masterpiece of suspense, pacing, structure, foreshadowing, and establishing mood.

As a young man, I read with keen interest the nonfiction book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer upon its first publication. About ten years later, when I made a mid-career change into teaching, I re-read the book with an eye toward making it a summer-reading assignment, and I thought, “Wow, this is still an awesome book.” Ten years after that, I re-read it yet again as I considered adding it to my regular 11th-grade curriculum, and I thought, “WOW, this is STILL an awesome book!” Across a span of 20 years, from age 30 to 50, Into the Wild has continued to have a profound impact on me. As it does also on the teenagers I teach. Whether they consider Chris McCandless to be a dreamy impractical fool, or a profound transcendental thinker, or something in between, few of my students are apathetic about his portrayal in the book.

So remember, whether you’re writing or reading, if you want to find the really good stuff, give it some time!

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Active reading: read with a pen!

Source: photo taken by the author.

You've probably heard the term “‘active listening” before. That’s the process of using body language, asking questions, etc. to engage in meaningful conversation. You have heard of this, yes? (Nod now so I know you've been listening). OK, there is also such a thing as “active reading,” but I prefer to call active reading “reading with a pen.” Active reading involves such strategies as highlighting text and taking notes, writing down questions raised by the text, noting other writers or works of literature the text reminds you of, and sometimes disagreeing with the text.

So if this is a blog about writing, why discuss reading? Because the two are inextricably linked. In order to become a good writer, you must be a curious (and preferably, a voracious) reader. After all, if you are not familiar with what else has already been written, how can you expect to write anything novel? Just as a lawyer must be well versed in the precedents of case law, a writer has to know the body of work that he or she stands upon.

And when you do read, don’t read passively. If you are a college student, one beautiful benefit is that you own the books you purchase for classes. Therefore, you can write in them as much as you like. And do so! I once heard a teacher say that no book has truly been read unless it is marked up, creased and torn, and covered with stains. So go ahead and cover those books with notes, questions, underlined ideas and sentences, you name it. The process of underlining, highlighting and making notes in the margins of a book is called annotating a text. You should get in the habit of making many annotations. As a college student, I used to write notes like “cf. Steinbeck” in the margin of literature anthologies. “Cf.” is the abbreviation for “confer,” and I was reminding myself that a passage in the anthology reminded me of something I had previously read by John Steinbeck and to go and check the applicable Steinbeck passage.

Remember, reading is active, not passive. You are engaged in a conversation with the text. Whether the author of last week’s best seller or the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle from thousands of years ago, writers are talking to you, their reader. So go ahead and talk back to them!

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Hey fathead, knock off the ad hominem attacks!

One type of logical fallacy commonly seen, especially in today's political climate, is the ad hominem attack. The strange looking term ad hominem is Latin for "to the man [person]," and an ad hominem attack is one where the character of the person proposing an idea is criticized rather than the idea itself. Most young people I know are intimately familiar with the ad hominem attack from arguments with their siblings. For example, you and your kid brother are debating about who should get the larger bedroom in a new house. Your kid brother points out that he has more material possessions than you do, so logic dictates that he should take the larger bedroom, to which you reply: "Shut up, fathead!" Yes, you've engaged in a (very rudimentary) form of ad hominem attack. Rather than countering kid brother's logic, you have (verbally) assaulted his person. Of course, our current political climate is a hotbed for such personal attacks. Just think back to the last two United States presidents. Bumper stickers about George W. Bush proclaimed cruelly that “Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot.” And today, facebook timelines are rife with vitriol against current president Barack Obama. Seldom do these attacks reveal anything substantial about ideas or policies.

A less obvious, but still pervasive, form of ad hominem attack occurs when, for example, the congressional representative proposing a new military affairs bill is criticized for not being a veteran. Notice that this type of attack does not seriously consider the potential merits or deficiencies of the proposed bill.

So remember, attack the argument and not the man (or woman). Better yet, try listening to the argument. By keeping an open mind, you might even learn something and your own argument could become stronger and more nuanced in the process.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Reading like a writer

Source: Wikimedia Commons public domain image.

The ability to read like a writer is one important skill you’ll need to master to become a successful college composition student. I always like to say that “reading like a writer” is analogous to “looking at a building like an architect.” I am not an architect, but I can still look at a building and appreciate its aesthetic beauty. But a trained architect can look at a building, appreciate its aesthetic qualities, and also expertly explain the construction and design techniques that went into making the building beautiful. In a like manner, a writer can read a story or essay and appreciate it aesthetically, but also read to understand how the piece of literature was constructed. A writer may ask, what techniques did the author use to create certain effects, and how can I experiment with those same techniques in my own writing? This is why I’m a big fan of reading a story or essay more than once. Read the first time for basic understanding and aesthetic enjoyment. Then read the second time with the “eye of a writer” to comprehend the design elements that led to your enjoyment (or perhaps the design flaws that led to your consternation!). To this end, most readings in a good composition class will serve as both materials to prompt ideas for writing topics and class discussion and as models of accomplished writing styles that can be imitated. Remember, writers are never “just” reading, but always seeking fresh techniques to hone their craft.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

What do bikinis and marathons have in common?

Source: Wikimedia Commons public domain photo.

Well, you certainly wouldn't want to run one in the other, but let’s talk about words...

Where do words come from? This is one of the questions many students (and adults) never really think about. Words don’t appear in mid-air by magic. And thankfully, there is no governmental Ministry of English that issues an approved lexicon. Words develop organically and dynamically through usage, and they also change over time. Sometimes the spelling of a word morphs over time to match its pronunciation, and sometimes the other way around. For example, I've seen the word “lose” (the opposite of win) misspelled as “loose” (the opposite of tight) so frequently that I suppose dictionaries will soon recognize “loose” as an acceptable alternate spelling for “lose.” Sometimes existing words gather new, additional meanings; other times words drop out of usage and are qualified in the dictionary as obsolete or archaic. And sometimes new words are added to English by interaction with other languages and cultures. War, immigration, economic trade and various other cultural interactions and clashes add words to our language all the time. For example, the English word “macho” comes from Spanish, although this word in English has a negative connotation (Chauvinistic behavior) but in Spanish has a positive connotation (describing a strong and wise family patriarch).

Unlike Spanish, French and Italian (all of which descended directly from Latin), English began life as a Germanic language known as Old English. This language differs so much from modern English that today Old English must be studied like a foreign tongue. With the conquest of England by the Norman French (after the Battle of Hastings in 1066), Old English was infused with French (and the Latin contained within French) and softened into Middle English. With a glossary of a few words, Middle English (the medieval language of Geoffrey Chaucer) can be understood by most modern readers. Contrary to popular opinion (and the moans of today’s students), the much later Elizabethan English (the language of Shakespeare) is considered modern English.

One interesting exercise is to scour a good dictionary that contains each word’s etymology, then choose an interesting word, and research a brief “history of a word.” By tracing the roots and derivations of words through history -- whether from ancient Greek, Latin, Old English, French, Old Norse, or other languages -- you can gain great insight into English word meanings and connotations. For example, some words come from places. A bikini, the swimsuit in the title of this post, gained its name from the Pacific ocean atoll of Bikini, which after World War 2 was pulverized by U.S. nuclear bomb tests. The two-piece bathing suit’s designer hoped his invention would have an “explosive” impact on fashion akin to the nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll (what a sad analogy). A marathon, the long footrace, comes from the name of a city in ancient Greece. According to the stories of antiquity, a Greek messenger ran from Marathon to Athens (a distance purportedly of 26 miles, roughly the same as a modern-day marathon race) to announce victory over the Persians at the Battle of Marathon. In the story, the messenger shouts “Victory!” and immediately drops dead from exhaustion.

How about this one? Bedlam means the eruption of chaos, anarchy and craziness, as in the sentence, “It was total bedlam in the out-of-control classroom.” This word is derived from Bethlehem, the name of the lunatic asylum in old London that locals with cockney accents pronounced “Bed’lam.” In English, words often shrink and contract. Think of the package delivery business Federal Express becoming FedEx.

Besides places, words can also come from the names of people, such as Chauvinism (mentioned earlier in this post), but perhaps we’ll name some of those in a later post!

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.