On Writing Well -Day9 (Ch10-2)

Content：

Part I | Principles

1. The Transaction

2. Simplicity

3. Clutter (Writing clean English Sentence)

4. Style (Preserving your identity)

5. The audience (Who am I writing for)

6. Words (The only tools you’ve got)

7. Usage (What is good usage)

Part II | Methods

8. Unity (Anchor of good writing)

9. The lead and the ending

10. Bits and pieces (cont.)

....

Words and Expressions:

1. a certain occupation has both a masculine and a feminine form

【释义】

adj.

 a. having qualities considered to be typical of men or of what men do (OPP feminine)

     [例]  She has a very masculine voice.

b. in some languages (e.g. French, Spanish), a masculine noun,pronoun etc belongs to a class of words that have different inflections from feminine or neuter words

    [例] German "Weg" is a masculine.

2. To turn every “he” into a “he or she,” and every “his” into a “his or her,” would clog the language.

clog做动词表示阻碍， 做名词表示皮面只盖住脚背，但没有盖住脚后跟的木底鞋。

【释义】

a. (Verb) When something clogs a hole or place, it blocks it so that nothing can pass through.

b. (Noun) a shoe made of wood with a leather top that covers the front of your foot but not your heel. 

3. It doesn’t work for every kind of writing, but it’s a godsend to anyone writing an instructional book or a self-help book.

godsend常使用单数形式，表示天赐之物。

【释义】

If you describe something as a godsend, you are emphasizing that it helps you very much. 

[例]  The hot weather has been a godsend for ice-cream sellers.

4. clear writing is the result of a lot of tinkering.

tinkering指修修补补，小修补。

[释义]

The act of making some small changes to something, in an attempt to improve it or repair it

5.  Many reporters had fallen into the habit of trying to make the news more palatable by writing in a feature style

palate指 the roof of the mouth (腭) ，早期的解剖学家认为人类的味觉位于palate，所以用palatable来描述食物，表示merely tolerable—edible, rather than delicious.

【释义】

1 palatable food or drink has a pleasant or acceptable taste 

2 an idea,suggestion etc that is palatable is acceptable

Background:

Zinser喜欢用棒球做例子，那就补充一点棒球的基本知识。

站位：

常见动作：

Thoughts:

说到writing color，我个人倒是觉得有时候也和性格有关。有人喜欢直抒胸臆，有人比较含蓄，喜欢先渲染一下气氛，然后再说到重点，很难说谁对谁错。

比如在邮件当中，欧美人喜欢在开头写I'm writing for...，来直接说明主题，而把详细的说明部分放在后续段落。而亚洲人喜欢先描述问题，然后在最后用So, i'm...来说明主题。所以有人开玩笑说，欧美人的邮件只要看第一句，亚洲人的邮件重点看最后一句。

当然，学术写作或者信息沟通的情况下，直奔主题当然是最好的方式，但在某些情况下，可能就会显得缺少“人情味”，所以还是要看具体应用场景。

今天的部分依然很琐碎，简单来说

不带偏见

让事实说话

写你所爱

以及最重要的 rewriting.... 享受rewriting的过程，因为每一步都是成长的见证：