10 posts tagged “english”

A half-page colour ad in the Hindu Metroplus attempts to sell Dove soap.  The tag line reads "Real women. Real Stories", and the ad goes on to say that "when you do see Dove's next commercial..blah blah...remember that these women are real women, just like you."

"Real" woman?  So, there are "unreal" women around?  Where do these advertising types get such brain-dead, meaningless phrases?  And why am I the only one online who seems to find it amiss ?  It seems the advertisement has stirred up quite a few discussions online, and one of them goes "What do you think of the current Dove ads featuring women with "real bodies"?"

That's even better. Real bodies, as against, what, virtual bodies?  False bodies?

An advertising blog says "Dove - Real Women, Real Skin".   Now we not only have real women and real bodies, we even have real skin.  This blog nitpicks that "Dove is Afraid to Use Real Women". So, what is it using?  Robots? Transvestites (who, I am sure will object being referred to as unreal women)?

And the "real" problem is that consumers fall for it. The real women ads for Dove has soared sales by 700%. The brand manager claims that the ad "..is so eye-catching and relates directly to real women everywhere. We were talking to women in the way they wanted to be talked to."

Uh uh,  no lady.  I don't want to be talked to like I am a brainless nincompoop who would understand what a "real" woman means. 

I would much rather be strongly rooted in the "real" world.

[[Ok Ok.. back to the "real" world with "real" deadlines and lots of "real" work]]
 

With three deadlines next week and the brain being deep-fried with radiation resistant photovoltaic cells, turbine blades and all in between, I sought relief in "On Writing Well" by Zinsser, introduced to me by dude to whom, the book is Bible and Bhagawad Gita rolled into one.  The author is a rare specimen who practices what he preaches, and I thoroughly enjoy it at every read. But there is always a risk attached - I get hyper-critical about my own writing and the writer's block surfaces out of "will Zinsser approve?" insecurity and it takes enormous effort to get over the Bell curve of self consciousness to be able to write again. In a way, this blog post is to help get over the inertia, if I want to meet the next deadline at least half way.

In his first chapter "Transactions", Zinsser writes about the time he and another writer were invited to interact with college students - he as a vocational writer, and the other, a surgeon writing on the side.  As he describes their vastly different attittudes to writing, I never fail to feel the "Aha" in me. For example, while Zinsser finds writing an arduous, lonely task where "words seldom flowed", his co-speaker found it "tremendous fun" to "write his tensions away".  Dr. Brock never re-wrote and just let words flow into a natural style, Zinsser wrote and re-wrote a dozen times before his work was out for print.  Zinsser never socialized with his editors, while Dr. Brock was often taken out to lunch by his editors and publishers. Dr. Brock could not write when in disturbed or unhappy mood, while for Zinsser, it was but a job, and had to go on.

Now why the "Aha" in me?  Because I am both of them.  My job involves writing and editing scientific proposals and documents and my hobby involves writing here, in Vox.  That way, I confess, I lead a restricted life.  When I am writing a proposal, I writhe and wriggle like a constipated snake,  and each word sees liberation after much pushing and shoving.  When I sit in front of the computer with a blank document screen, I stand before Mount Everest.  But then, this, as Zinsser says, is my job, Everest has to be surmounted and as the ideas form and take shape in the mind, I grope around for words and sentences that can deliver it.  However, when I am sitting in front of the computer with my vox screen in front of me, my hands cannot fly fast enough to freeze the ideas and words that tumble down.

My vox essays are posted just as soon as I have concluded it, while my proposals go through innumerable revisions and when I send it out, I am still not completely satisfied; a re-read few days later shows me sentences I could have constructed otherwise.   I prefer not to meet my editor/boss ever in my life, if I can help it - working from home, in a country a couple of continents away helps. I have, however, met many of my vox readers and co-writers in real life over gastronomic refreshments. My moods are clearly reflected in my vox, while there is no way a solar cell can exhibit a 99% efficiency because I have had a three scoop Sundae for lunch.

Another observation I have made over the years I have written, both on and off the job, is that "I" exist here, in vox, while "I" am a cold, distant alien in my proposals.  When I read my vox essay a few months or years later, even though I can find many ways to have written it better (the editor in me is omnipotent), I can relate to the essay  and believe that I had written it.  When I re-read my proposal, even a week after I have submitted it, I cannot. Sometimes the sentences appear neat and clean to me, and clearly, that professional writer couldn't be me.  Other times I cannot believe how badly the document has been written, and it could again not be I who wrote it.  Yet, both are very much the same megalomaniacal writer in me.

There is one sentence that Zensser starts his second chapter with - "Clutter is the disease of American writing", that I whole heartedly agree with, with the exception that I would replace "American" with "Professional". More often than not, on re-read of my proposals, I am struck with how pompous and inflated my ideas sound in the clutter of technical terms and big words that effectively mean nothing and are put in merely to give it an "intellectual" feel. I wonder if I can ever get rid of clutter from my professional vocabulary and describe my ideas in simple language and sell it. The one time I did, I received a review that the idea was "Too simplistic to warrant funding".

The ultimate irony is that when I clothed the very same idea in bombastic jargons and references, it was funded with not so much as a whimper.

 

 When I was in sixth class, our English Prose text book contained an excerpt from Jerome K. Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat" where the author describes his Uncle Podger who would bring the entire family and neighbourhood to its knees whenever he undertook any task.  A hilarious account, that was, at that age, marred by the fact that you had to know by-heart certain passages, to answer questions - what an easy route to making the most interesting work of literature, pure agony.  Ever since, I believe I've had a mental block against JKJ (as I did with R.K. Narayan, for his "Blind Dog" was included in the same Prose text book), because I associated him with English exams, and if you have been an unfortunate regular reader of this blog, you'd know my take on exams.  Time took its toll on the fallible human memory, and the author was shelved into the dark recess of grey matter upstairs.

A few months ago, a reader of this blog, Vani, who subsequently became a friend (should I add "despite the blog") suggested adding Jerome K. Jerome to my reading list.  After the intial nausea of exam memories subsided, I decided to indeed give it a try.  And as luck would have it, I found a 2-in-1 omnibus of JKJ on the same discount table that also housed the Lynn Truss Treasury that let me down.

The book contained two works of JKJ - "The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" and "Three Men in a Boat".  "Three Men in a Boat" is elegantly written, makes you smile, if not guffaw, and makes for good reading while you are waiting outside your child's school, sitting on a rather sharp culvert that is not particularly gentle on your rear.  But what bowled me over were the essays in "The Idle Thoughts...".  The essays are not only humorous, but brutally true and thought provoking, a rare combination.  Here is a paragraph from an essay titled "On Vanity and Vanities" that caught my attention.

As for love, flattery is its very life-blood.  Fill a person with love for themselves, and what runs over will be your share, says a certain witty and truthful Frenchman whose name I can't for the life of me remember. (Confound it ! I never can remember names when I want to).  Tell a girl she is an angel, only more angelic than an angel; that she is a goddess, only more graceful, queenly and heavenly than the average goddess, that she is more fairy-like than Titania, more beautiful than Venus, more enchangint than Parthenope; more adorable, lovely and radiant, in short, than any other woman that ever did live, does live or could live, and you will make a very favorable impression upon her trusting little heart. Sweet innnocent ! She will believe every word you say, it is so easy to deceive a woman - in this way.

No one writes like that anymore.  Just how much more elegant even the swear phrase "Confound it" is, compared to banal, vulgar words used today.  The lines flow uniterrupted, and paint a picture in your mind, of that which is being described. 

But raptures on language aside, I believe what he says is indeed true.  Women are easily deceived by flattery, the only unfortunate development since the days of JKJ being, she is not deceived enough.  The world would be a much better place with more flattery than exists now.  As the Frenchman whose name eluded JKJ said, love for oneself can only overflow into love for others.  And we could definitely do with more of that, can't we?

After the stiff-upperlip-smile of PGW, I chose for the next read, the Lynne Truss Treasury that I had picked up at Landmark for Rs. 90 (< $2), on a sale table, underneath mounds of "How to win friends and influence people", "Linda Goodman Lovesigns" and such other flush-worthy mush. Having been bowled over in the past with "Eats, Shoots and Leaves", the heart bled at the mix Truss had got into, and I took it upon myself to rescue the damsel in distress and give her a new home in our shining new book shelf.

Now, as I labour through the many pages of the first novel (One Lousy Free Packet of Seed) in the collection,  I wonder if its rightful place was right at that table.  Agreed that the author has a command of language and punctuation that is enviable. The story, if there is any in the first place, is hardly of the calibre I had imagined.  Perhaps it is early days yet, and the story would pick up after the third chapter I am constipating at, or perhaps this is an exceptionally bad piece in the collection, to give it a benefit of doubt.  Yet, I am wondering if I should continue to torture myself with this story, or perhaps move on to another in the collection, or her columns perhaps, or perhaps to a completely different book, like Erma Bombeck, to lift the sagging literary spirit - not that Erma has any literary merit to speak of, at least she makes me laugh. This first story in the book reminds me of a trashy pulp fiction I read as an adolescent called "I  still miss my man, but my aim is getting better" by Sarah Shankman.  I am not sure if that is a compliment to Shankman or Truss.

This, as usual, leads me to a tangential topic. Some people associate memories to smells, some to sights; I, to books.  I get a funny feeling in my stomach at the memory of "I still miss..." because I read it at a time that I was laid off my second job within six months during the 1997 recession, with a credit card balance, an expiring visa and no hope in sight and I had constant crabs gnawing the innards as I read the book to drown my sorrows.  Similarly, dude and I had listened to an audio book during my first trimester, and any audio book I hear since, makes me feel nausious and crave for saltines.

Back to where we started.  Should I or shouldn't I proceed with Truss? 
 

Thematingseason

"As the days went by, these unsettled outlooks became more unsettled, those V-shaped depressions even V-er.  It was on a Friday that I clocked in at Deverill Hall.  By the morning of Tuesday I could no longer conceal it from myself that I was losing the old pep and that, unless the clouds changed their act and started dishing out at an early date a consierably more substantial slab of silver lining than they were coming across with at the moment, I should soon be definitely down among the wine and spirits."

I don't claim to be an expert writer, but writer I am by profession, by virtue of which I once gave a lecture to some kids in college about what constitutes science witing and what are the must-dos and  dare-not-dos of science writing.  The above paragraph that starts chapter 10 of The Mating Season by P.G. Wodehouse violates every single "rule" I layed out to the students - never write long sentences, never use too many clauses and phrases in the same sentence, always use active voice, do not use platitudes and adjectives that do not qualify the noun objectively, to name a few. My heart should ideally bleed at the total disdain for my rules.  Yet, every book by PGW I re-read for the teenth time since adolescence makes me love them more.  The easy flow of language, the exaggerated use of unexpectedly apt words, the complex sentences that take a couple of reads to untangle and understand, and the intricate plot that involves knots within knots that are unravelled beautifully - I am yet to read another humour writer who has appealed to me as much as PGW. 

As tempting it may be to believe that PGW is a genius whose writing just happens by chance,  a read of his last, unfinished novel Sunset at Blandings proves otherwise.  It is surprising to know that PGW starts his novels with only a semblence of a half-baked plot, and writes up the bare skeleton of the story, berefit of language sophistication, satire and the tongue-in-cheek that is so characteristic of him. It reads rather like a poor story by a wannabe writer without any talent. I believe that all his novels start this way. And yet, after many many revisions (I read somewhere that each novel goes through 14-20 revisions before it goes to print) the half-baked boring story metamorphoses into the side splitting, one-of-a-kind stories that bring Bertie or Bladndings castle in front of your eye..

I am typing up this post on my husband's micro-mini HCL tablet PC, where my fingers don't fly like they do in my safe and trusted monster of a desktop computer, and I can wager that I would post it without a single re-read.  I have a long way to go to even aspire to write like my hero. 

One quick complaint before I go on with life.

The age of SMS and IMs has ushered in a total and complete disregard for punctuations.  I know many people have huffed and puffed about it, and let me add my own to them.  I could fall on Lynn Truss's shoulders and sob my heart out. 

I required help for some editing work and got an email from someone who has had many years of editing experience.  In this person's email to me, I found not one capital letter (even after fullstops, or for proper nouns), not one comma. Semicolons and colons, forget them.  And "u" for "you" (e.g. thank u) which makes me want to curl into foetal position. Call me old fashioned, but I am so heart broken.  

What hurts me more is that I don't know this person personally, and she is sending me a formal introductory mail offering her assistance in editing technical papers. 

[End complaint]

Writing Briefly and Stuff by Paul Graham

No more smiley for me.  A very innocuous comment at another blog hit the nail right where it penetrates.  Smileys DO insult the intelligence of the reader.  In fact, the same goes for exclamation marks, which I use in plenty.  Says Scott Fitzgerald - "Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”

So, in future, when I write (if I write, I should add, considering that I am still groping around in dark), if you notice any smileys or exclamation marks that tumbled out of my fingers due to sheer routine, club me on my head.  I shall duly apologise and obliterate the offending piece.

My resolution for a later year (may be a decade hence) would be to do away with brackets.  I am still deeply attached to brackets to let them go now.

William Zinsser says "Clutter is the disease of American writing" in his book - On Writing Well.  See below, a proof of his statement, in a report by The Council for Chemical Research -

Catalysis is a broad technical field and its great economic value is not, in and of itself, the catalyst as a product but the reaction chemistry it enables.

If you can make any sense of the above statement at first read, accept my humble obeisance.

You know, I have a deadline in a week and common sense tells one that I should be slogging my rear off. 

Yet here I am taking online quizzes on random stuff !  Vijay, I shall forward any stinkers from office to you. 

The question now is this: What kind of intelligence do I possess?  I was unaware that I possessed intelligence of any sort, but apparently I do, as this survey proclaims.