WRITING BETTER ENGLISH, WEEK 11

 

WRITING BETTER ENGLISH, WEEK 11

Persuasion:

ETHOS – AUTHORITY, REPUTATION, ACHIEVEMENT, INSIGHT

LOGOS - REASON

PATHOS – EMOTION

 

- STRUNK AND WHITE, from THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

- EMERSON, from “SELF-RELIANCE”

-FROST, POETRY, ”The Oven Bird”

 

LAST WEEK’S ASSIGNMENT, 150-250 WORDS ON BROWNING’S “MY LAST DUCHESS’

 

 

 

NEXT WEEK’S ASSIGNMENT, 150-250 W0RDS

FROST’S ‘The Oven Bird” or on a quote from Emerson, 150-250 words

 

https://www.moralapologetics.com/wordpress/what-to-make-of-a-diminished-thing-poeticizing-the-fall-part-1-of-2

In his poem “The Oven Bird,” Frost uses the theological tropes of the Fall along with natural revelation to give new meaning to the natural world of the poem while also continuing to develop metaphorical poetics in which meaning itself must be both natural and supernatural. Frost displays remarkable poetic dexterity by both theologizing and naturalizing the act of this common bird’s call.

There is a singer everyone has heard,

Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,

Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.

He says that leaves are old and that for flowers

Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.

He says the early petal-fall is past

When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers

On sunny days a moment overcast;

And comes that other fall we name the fall.

He says the highway dust is over all.

The bird would cease and be as other birds

But that he knows in singing not to sing.

The question that he frames in all but words

Is what to make of a diminished thing.

 

 

THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE, CONTINUED

IV. WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS COMMONLY MISUSED

“any body” means “any corpse. ”Use “anybody.”

“as good or better than.” Use “as good as, if not better.

“As yet.” Use “yet.”.”

“no” doubt but that” use “no doubt that

“Certainly” often over-used.

“Comprise” means embrace or include.

“Currently” is often reeundant.

“Data” is a plural noun. “Datum” is singular.

“disinterested” is impartial. “Uninterested” bored.

 

 

 

ESSAY, "SELF-RELIANCE," RALPH WALDO EMERSON

 

FIFTEENTH PARAGRAPH Ending

We pass for what we are.

Character teaches above our wills.

Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.

SIXTEENTH PARAGRAPH (BROKEN INTO SENTENCES)

Fear never but you shall be consistent in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour.

For of one will, the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem.

These varieties are lost sight of when seen at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all.

The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. This is only microscopic criticism. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency.

Your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing.

Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now.

Greatness always appeals to the future. If I can be great enough now to do right and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now.

Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances and you always may. The force of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their health into this.

What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate and the field, which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a train of great days and victories behind.

There they all stand and shed an united light on the advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort of angels to every man’s eye.

That is it which throws thunder into Chatham’s voice, and dignity into Washington’s port, and America into Adams’s eye.

Honor is venerable to us because it is no ephemeris. It is always ancient virtue.

We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love it and pay it homage because it is not a trap for our love and homage, but is self-dependent, selfderived, and therefore of an old immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person.

 

REMINDER  / REVIEW

Chapter Titles from THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize Habit

7: Sharpen the Saw

 

WRITING ASSIGNMENT:  150-250 WORDS ON AN EMERSON QUOTE OR ON FROST’S “THE OVEN BIRD”

 

 My other coaching site is WRITE YOUR BOOK WITH ME