On Writing Well Day 15 Chapter 17 Sports

I. Words & Expressions

Southpaws were always lanky, portsiders always chunky.

southpaw

n. If you're left-handed, you can call yourself asouthpaw. If you're also a baseball fan, you may admiresouthpawslike the famous left-handed pitcher Sandy Koufax.

portsider

n. a left-handed person

lanky

n. tall and thin and having long slender limbs （瘦而高）

chunky 

n. short and thick; as e.g. having short legs and heavy musculature（矮而厚实）

and manya  baseball fan  who flunked simple arithmetic in school can perform prodigies of instant caculation in the ballpark.

flunk (informal)[美]

v. fail to get a passing grade 

eg. Tony flunked the test.      Tom flunked out if the college. (因考试不及格而被迫退学)

prodigy

n. an unusually gifted or intelligent (young) person; someone whose talents excite wonder and admiration

eg. Mozart was a musical prodigy.

The ego of the modern athlete has in turn rubbed off on the modern sportswriter.

rub off 

1. (wear away) 磨损

eg. Jack rubbed the mud off his face.

2. if a feeling,quality or habit rubs off on you, you start to have it because you are with another person who has it. (感染、影响)

eg. She refused to give up, and her confidence has rubbed off on others.

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II. Summary& Thoughts

相对于体育报道以及体育人物传记，我更倾向于作者能够给我们大众一些更贴近体育人物本身生活的文章。

好的作家会注意到 avoid the exhausted synonyms and strive for freshness, humor and originality elsewhere in their sentences。

首先，Zinsser 指出体育写作中要避免两个误区；

1. repeating the word that earsiest for the reader to visualize

2. numbers 

此外，Zinsser 还提出一些写作原则：

Those are the values to look for when you write about sport: people and places, time and transition.

在此基础上要做到两点：

1.to let us konw what it feels like to actually perform a sport

2. catch the fatigue and lonliness of the professinal athlete's nomadic life 

Zinsser 在本章节最后不忘叮嘱

Hang around the track and the stable, the stadium and the rink. 

Observe closely.

Interview in depth.

Listen to old-timers.

Ponder the changes.

Write well.

对于大部分体育报道，很难去认真阅读。所以如果一般题材比较贴近体育人物的生活实际，写得幽默风趣，这样更会让人读下去，譬如傅园慧的走红。孙杨以及张继科。

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连续两天断网，终于今天有网了，赶完今天的作业。周末还要补上拉下的阅读任务。