If that copy editor had looked up those words in a dictionary, we might not have received the phone complaints the next day from council members.
"to warn: to tell of a danger, coming evil, misfortune, etc.; to put on guard against a person or thing."
"to admonish: 1. to warn; caution against specific faults. 2. to reprove with mildness."
It's that second meaning of admonish that caused the trouble as it had the council scolding citizens instead of directing them away from some danger. There's a shade of meaning there that you can't get from using a thesaurus alone.
Zinsser's warning to never use a thesaurus without a follow-up visit to the dictionary is worth heeding. And I like his statement at the beginning of Chapter 6:
"You'll never make your mark as a writer unless you develop a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning that is almost obsessive."
You won't develop that respect through quick visits to a thesaurus. Get a good dictionary and look up words. Or use the excellent and easy-to-use dictionaries online.
You also need to read, read, read and listen to great writers. As Zinsser says, "Make a habit of reading what is being writte
n today and what was written by earlier masters. Writing is learned by imitation."
I just started "The Forever War" by Dexter Filkins, New York Times correspondent in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Alexandre Dumas is lined up on the reading shelf right behind him. A mix of new and old, non-fiction and fiction.
I write this not to appear as some erudite egotist but to get a discussion going. What are you reading, or what were you reading before I loaded you down with assignments for the class? Give us your recommendations.
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ReplyDeleteI've been reading books about writing. A couple that I enjoyed were "Follow the Story" by James B. Stewart, and "Writing for Story" by Jon Franklin. Stewart and Franklin are veteran journalists who offer insights and advice about the nuts and bolts of writing a story -- how to find good ideas; how to write a good lead; how to choose the right structure.
ReplyDeleteNormally I read books about history. Earlier this year, I read "What Hath God Wrought" by Daniel Howe, covering the U.S. between 1815 and 1848. It's a long book, but fascinating.
Before starting this class, I was reading The Mysterious Benedict Society. It's by Trenton Lee Stewart and I got it from the children's section. A lot of the fiction I read are children's books, the latest including Inkheart by Cornelius Funke and then some of the Harry Potters a second time through. Kids' books have always pulled me in. Still do.
ReplyDeleteSome recent nonfiction I've read include parts of Musicophilia, Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks, The Way to Write for Children by Joan Aiken, In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson, and Grace (Eventually), Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott.
I love reading memoirs. The last ones were Julie & Julia by Julie Powell, followed immediately by My Life in France by Julia Child. This all started with the movie. I got inspired by the story of Julia Child discovering a passion relatively late in life and still making a great success out of it.
I started reading "How Starbucks Saved My Life" but dropped it to to read the Indifferent Stars for our class. Now that I'm done with that I need to find the Starbucks book again. Meanwhile I started "The Thing about Life is that Someday You'll Be Dead," but haven't been too interested in it so far. I've also read parts of "Creatively Self-Employed: How Writers and Artists Deal with Career Ups and Downs" and Vonnegut's "Armageddon in Retrospect." I tend to not read straight through as much as I once did- anyone else's reading style taking a hit from internet habits?
ReplyDeleteI just finished Ron Susskind's "The Way of the World". One of the many things that he does well in this book is to move from the global scale of an issue to the personal. For example, he spends a good amount of time examining the conflict occurring between Islamic fundamentalism and Western secular society. He then follows a group of teenage students from Afghanistan as they spend a year with American families in the States. We watch the families and the exchange students struggle to come to an equilibrium between what they had anticipated the year would be and how it played out in reality.
ReplyDeleteI am also going back and forth between "Immigrants, your country needs them", by Phillipe Legrain and "Raising my Voice", by Malalai Joya. Both are a nice window from outside the U.S. to attitudes about American issues and policies.
Before I was sideswiped by the reading assignments, I was reading "Personal History" by Katherine Graham, the former publisher of the Washington Post. It is fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI've also just downloaded to my Kindle, "The Jew Store" by Stella Suberman. My book club chose this for our next meeting. It is a memoir about the first Jewish family to settle in a small town in Tennessee. When I'm done with "The Indifferent Stars Above," I'll dig in.
I love reading fiction and narrative non-fiction. My favorite reads of late include: "Polio: An American Story," "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," "The Help," "The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11."
I also like a dose of pure mindless trash. Every now and then I sneak in a Sookie Stackhouse mystery by Charlaine Harris, which is basis of the HBO series Trueblood.