Dedicated to Flip

PianoMan

Nitrous
Joined
Apr 1, 2006
Messages
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Location
Overland Park, Kansas USA
I thought this list might come in handy for those that have trouble expressing themselves correctly when posting on the forum.


HOW TO WRITE GOOD
by Frank L. Visco

My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:

1... Avoid alliteration. Always.

2... Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

3... Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)

4... Employ the vernacular.

5... Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

6... Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.

7... It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

8... Contractions aren't necessary

9... Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

10.. One should never generalize.

11.. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

12.. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.

13.. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.

14.. Profanity sucks.

15.. Be more or less specific.

16.. Understatement is always best.

17.. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

18.. One-word sentences? Eliminate.

19.. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

20.. The passive voice is to be avoided.

21.. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

22.. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

23.. Who needs rhetorical questions?
 
Pianoman:

I never graduated from High School.....

"And it might at times be a matter of regret that we had not arranged our undertakings otherwise than we did" (H.W. Fowler, author of The King's English, 1926)

A matter of regret? . Life's too short. I'd rather relate to it your way Flip. More than an admission: a CLAIM.

Jamie
 
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A linguists dream, PM. Tempting but I will defer to the true multilinguist in our midst, where you be ats Jamie??
 
postings

Ouch!

After reading that, (and knowing I try to write as if I'm speaking), I must sound dumb! Help me, Flip, Jamie, whoever.
 
I'm the waterbug Tomo

I'll confess to everyone. If it weren't for i.e. spell checker and punctuation and grammar, I'd come across like Jed Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies.

My wife Amy, who is very educated, sometimes stands over my shoulder and corrects posts as I go along. Whatever she says is always right......:D
 
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