Kat Beyer
artist & writer
art@katspaw.com
| From Diagramming to Social Revolution | |
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Note: this article was first published in the alumnae magazine of Castilleja Preparatory School. I have left in the local references. I always found words easy to handle. If they sounded wrong together, I fixed them. And so, consequently, I hated grammar and loathed composition. I could not understand why we wasted our time with this nonsense; I couldn't even see the need for an English class. We all spoke English. Hello? Why fuss around with diagramming and analysis, and why, for goodness' sake, study style? A girl developed style on her own. Any junior could tell you that. I did not mind composition and grammar quite so much in the spring. Then I could smell the cut grass on the Circle and listen to the bees philosophizing in the wisteria; the heat made me drowsy and forgiving. So I actually paid attention when, one sleepy afternoon, Ms. Flowers gave us five pieces of advice on writing. Here they are, transcribed from my faded notes: 1. Prefer fewer words to many.
2. Prefer one sentence to two or three.
3. Prefer complex sentences to compound sentences.
4. Prefer verbs to nouns, and eschew “to be.”
5. Prefer people to abstractions. I wrote these down dutifully, more out of respect for Ms. Flowers than anything else. And then I graduated. At university, writing essays on enthusiastic Vikings and mad saints, I began to see how these plain guidelines clarified and strengthened every sentence I wrote. With strong sentences, I could form strong arguments. After university, I discovered that people pay for clear speech and strong arguments. People paid me to argue in favor of, among other things, a brand of carpet, a web site that sold thin air, and a foul-tasting energy bar made mostly of orange peel. I also started to notice the speech of others. I found myself wanting to remind our world leaders and our media reporters to speak clearly. "Prefer fewer words to many," I wanted to tell them. "And, I beg you, prefer people to abstractions." (By now, I understand suggestion 5 as a theory for living.) Now, though older and possibly wiser, I want to remind them again. But I fear our world leaders and our journalists talk in circles and take refuge behind euphemisms because they wish to avoid anything so awkward as public debate. Because now I know those style guidelines, and all the anatomical detail of grammar that lies behind them, can cause trouble too. For, if we speak clearly, then people can understand us; if they can understand us, they can argue with us. Consider all the raging debate over this elegant phrase, presented to every session of Congress since 1926: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” What makes that sentence even more impressive is that Alice Paul, its author, didn’t even have Nancy Flowers’ five preferences for style. In those drowsy spring classes, we did not know we were being handed powerful tools. Now we have them, and we can use them to argue for orange peel energy bars or social change, just as we like. Thank you, Ms. Flowers, and Mrs. Rino, Ms. Bishop, Mrs. Melmon, and everyone else who patiently lectured to us as we dozed; sorry some of us took so long to wake up. |