I posted below about, among other things, Amanda' Marcotte's hair-raisingly bad writing. In case that has further intimidated any would-be commenters, I just thought I'd make it clear just how bad I mean. This is from a Pandagon post yesterday:
'The host is a real life friend of mine, but he's promised not to let me off easy from the hard questions because of it.'
Wonderful isn't it? Every word trots off drunkenly in a different direction. This, remember, was a woman who worked, briefly, for a Democrat contender, John Edwards, though she was not, as far as I know, considered as a speech writer. Amanda is now in serious danger of replacing 'Lord' Jeff in my affections.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I is not sure shes' done bad grammer in this sentence you picked. I understands' it. Your just been a snob.
ReplyDelete"Amanda is now in serious danger of replacing 'Lord' Jeff in my affections."
ReplyDeleteHide your statuary! We know what happened last time...just look at his eyes:)
I have, indeed, a crazed gleam. Technically, Neil, that 'easy' is bad grammar, should be 'easily' but I accept that as American vernacular. What I don't accept is the way she just dumps words without shaping them in any way - the 'because of it' at the end is the worst example.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Bryan. It is very sloppy work. And it jars. I was just being a vandal. Mind you, it's not that easy to get it very wrong without it seeming contrived, as my comment illustrated. It was too bad to be true. Grammar is a funny thing though. I didn't receive any formal instruction while at school. However, if I read a sentence that is ungrammatical, I will know almost immediately that it is ungrammatical. I won't be able to tell you why exactly, but I will be able to tell how it can be improved or fixed. In the case of the sentence you pulled, my three-year old would have winced. I'm a little on edge now about my own grammar. Check this one for me, will you?
ReplyDeleteThe sentsnce 'The host is a real life friend of mine, but he's promised not to let me off easy from the hard questions because of it.'
ReplyDeleteshould have been rendered
"A friend the host of mine, real life is, but questions he's to let me off hard easy promised not it of because.'
See, it didn't much take tinkering to a thing of elegance to make of it to through a little application of it.
Guess I can only make of the silence in response to the latter post being because of persons unknown but reasonably suspected of being in awe of the success in the successful restructuring of the original wording through the replacing of the very same words with the idential words but in a different order from the original structure. See, no mystery, just application of the brain, it being that what it is there for, obviously.
ReplyDeleteIf only I could write like that. It will be forgiven me I hope in paraphrasing that bit given of the writing of hers from the site where it is, and some more of it.
ReplyDelete"Engels is a real life friend of mine, the man second in power in the Communism making idea bits, but he's promised not to let me off easy from the hard questions of how a revolution is made because of it."
Another bit of it more again:
"I thought that I’d seen it all in terms of novel ways reactionaries try all to prevent Marxism from being taught in the classroom, but this takes the cake."
The above taken again as said from the original as it was but different now in the above, now.
I once won,...no,no.. Once, I won the prize for the longest sentence ever written at my school - 4 pages, I believe. My excuse or rather explanation is that, sometimes ,I get, or rather I become very taken with whatever idea or thought I have at the time; I do not want to lose it, and, as I am easily distracted, that often happens. What can I do but stay with it? I had the same problem, (if one wishes to see it as a problem) with speech; now I just combine the two, and write as I think. Hence my reasons for understanding Amanda's writing(but not approving, you understand) Lord JJ is another matter, and I have no wish to defend him.
ReplyDeleteNB "once" and "become" should ideally be in Italics, but I have not learned to do that yet. Also, any ideas on how to turn a photo so that it is the correct way up?
Hmm, I wrote and it just disappeared! The great one of the internet deemed it rubbish.
ReplyDeleteMind, as it was about my bad experience after visiting Amanda's and Jeff's blog sites, it could have been for the protection of you, other readers.
Glad to have suffered for greater good! Bryan, do not do it - Lord Jeff is at least deluded, and laughingly so.
Oh Karl, you old kidder. In fact, your last sentence sounds just like late Beckett.
ReplyDeleteRebel, surely Amanda is deluded
ReplyDelete