On Writing Well-Chap.3 & 4

1 Interesting Language Points

1.1 summon

As for the personal physician, that's the man or woman summoned to the dressing room of striken actress so she won't have to be treated by the impersonal physician assigned to the theater.(Chap.3)

v. to order someone to come to a place summon somebody to something

n. an official order to appear in a court of law

I suppose that we should summon child to Pantheon in order to make them write the essay about Roman theology well.

1.2 pompous & pretentious & faddish

By using a more pompous phrase in his professional role he not only sounds more important(Chap.3)

Is anything pompous or pretentious or faddish?(Chap.3)

pretentious

someone who is pompous thinks that they are important, and shows this by being very formal and using long words (used to show disapproval)

pretentious

if someone or something is pretentious, they try to seem more important, intelligent, or high class than they really are in order to be impressive

faddish

like a fad

A trend of pretentious behavior is what a sophomore demonstrates etymologically and practically.

1.3 untangle

There are as many kinds of writer's block as there are kinds of writers, and I have no intention of trying to untangle them.(Chap.4)

1. to separate pieces of string, wire etc that are twisted together

2. to make something less complicated

compare to tangle, tangible, intangible

The approach to untangling a seemingly tough question is to untangle the mess of your ideas.

1.4 self-indulgence & cop-out

"I" can be a self-indulgence and a cop-out.(Chap.4)

self-indulgence

the act to allow yourself to have or do things that you enjoy but do not need, especially if you do this too often (used to show disapproval)

cop-out

something you do or say in order to avoid doing or accepting something

Do you still use "to refresh after a catastrophe" as a cop-out?How self-indulgent you are!

2 Good Words

Often just one word got bracketed: the unnecessary preposition appended to a verb("order up"), or the adverb that carries the same meaning as the verb("smile happily"), or the adjective that states a known fact("tall skyscraper").

Extending the metaphor of carpentry, it's first necessary to be able to saw wood neatly and to drive nails. Later you can bevel the edges or add elegant finials, if that's your taste. But you can never forget that you are practicing a craft that's based on certain principles. If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.

3 Summary in Chinese

第三章继续第二章“简洁”这个主题，用更大的篇幅说明了何谓“繁冗”的语言。作者说，与冗言斗争就像于杂草斗争。杂草层出不穷，冗言的浮夸感也吸引着不少人，这其中就包括作者所提到且大加讽刺的John Dean，小布什，Alexander Haig等人。值得注意的是，作者所举得这些例子都是政商界人物或相关机构，对此作者也指出这是政治正确使然。后面作者具体举出的一些例子不仅仅是为了让作者具体地去学习，而是举一反三。里面的颇有些共同点。如，大量的添加语意重复的副词、形容词，使用一些看起来很常用实际上完全没有必要的用法，故意使用高级词汇（这一要求与语言考试的要求恰恰相反）。最后所说的括号的用法很向小学修改作文的办法，但很有用。

第四章好像是在解答看完前几章愤愤不平的读者的问题。如果为了简洁以至于平淡，那风格从何谈起呢？作者很自然的点出，这两者没有任何关系。简洁是树干，使文章成立的基本。文采是树枝，是辨别风格的标志。这也与我昨天的领悟不谋而合。我遗憾自己没能够早看到这一箴言。