ITALIAN R5B Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Ian Tattersall, Hans Hofmann, Becoming Human
21 May 2018
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#25 3/21 Wednesday
From Stanley Fish’s How to Write a Sentence
“People write or speak sentences in order to produce an effect, and the success of a sentence
is measured by the degree to which the desired effect has been achieved. That is why the
prescriptive advice you often get in books like Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style—write
short sentences, be direct, don’t get lost in a maze of piled-up clauses, avoid the passive voice,
place yourself in the background, employ figures of speech sparingly—is useful only in relation
to some purposes, and unfortunate in relation to others. The first thing to ask when writing a
sentence is ‘What am I trying to do?’” (37)
An Effective Use of Passive Voice: From Ian Tattersall, Becoming
Human (reprinted in Harvey, Nuts and Bolts)
“Horses, mammoths, reindeer, bison, mountain goats, lions, and a host of other mammals
cascade in image along the cave walls over a distance of almost a hundred yards, over three
hundred depictions in all. Delicately executed and meticulously observed, these varied and
overlapping images were made by people of the late Ice Age, perhaps thirteen thousand years
ago.”
Harnessing Convoluted Syntax: Henry James, “The Real Thing”
(1892)
“When the porter’s wife (she used to answer the house-bell), announced ‘A gentleman—with a
lady, sir,’ I had, as I often had in those days, for the wish was father to the thought, an
immediate vision of sitters.”
Before you start ignoring the basic rules of clarity and concision, however, you should master
them.
I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil. Truman Capote
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
Hans Hofmann
Example 1
Most likely, a majority of all patients who appear at a public medical clinical facility do not expect
special medical attention or treatment, because their particular health problems and concerns
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