Day 9（Bits & Pieces Part II）

Summary

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Sexism: Sexism language is not a problem and we can look for ways to make ourselves available to the people we're trying to reach.

Rewriting: Rewriting is the essence of writing well.

Writing on a computer: This is a good way of saving time and energy.

Trust your material: Truth is important in the writing so we should try to present the colorful fact.

Go with your interests: Write whatever you like.

Words and Expressions

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One of the most vexing new questions for writers is what to do about sexist language,...

1 vexing adj. 使人烦恼的 （和后文中出现的“bothersome”是一个含义）

eg: Students like making some vexing problems.

Those makeshift words from the 1960s raised our consciousness about sex discrimination,...

2 makeshift adj. 权宜之计的 （文中指的是用一些词如chairperson来代替chairman只是一种权益之计，有时候不一定能起到好的效果。）

Where the male pronoun remains in this edition I felt it was the only solution that wasn't cumbersome.

3 cumbersome adj. 麻烦的，累赘的

eg: Luggages are cumbersome while travelling.

All these sentences are the same length and have the same soporific rhythm;...

4 soporific adj. 催眠的

The teacher's voice is soporific in the class.

the campus are infested with laconic men who have spent a lifetime appraising talent.

5 be infested with 充满着 （infested 指的是害虫，野兽大批滋生或出没）

eg: The railway station are infested with people on weekdays mornings.

I spotted an empty seat next to a weathered man in his sixties.

6 weathered adj. 风化的 （这里是指饱经风霜的老人）

eg: We can tell a lot from his weathered face.

I had never given any thought to the elapsed time of a double play.

7 elapsed adj. 消逝的 （passed）

elapse v. 消逝

eg: The elapsed time never come back.

Thoughts

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Students don't share my love of rewriting . They think of it as punishement: extra homework or extra infield practice. Please——if you are such a student——think of it is a gift. You won't write well until you understand that writing is an evolving process, not a finished product. Nobody expects you to get it right the first time, or even the second time.

  读到文章需要修改这段内容，我想起上周办公室的语文老师几乎面批了每一位学生的作文，有几位问题比较大的学生让他们改了三稿。其中两位学生因为改语文作文弄到晚上十点，结果家长就在群里面抱怨语文作业多，老师一直让学生改作文有什么好改的，还不如直接重写。先不去谈老师的辛苦，家长的无知和不知感恩，作文改写确实让很多人拒绝。包括自己小时候，老师让我改写作文一遍甚至两遍，我都会觉得好烦。老师是不是在整我。我们不愿意花时间重复在一件事情上，觉得那是浪费时间。人因此也变得越来越浮躁，不要说文章的改写，很多时候我们发出去的微信信息都懒的去看第二遍有没有错别字或表达不清就直接发出去了。虽然这并不会给我们生活造成多大的障碍但是总给人一种浮躁，不诚恳的感觉。现在笔记已经做到第八篇了，我越来越注意写好的东西要多看几篇，甚至读出来，然后进行一定修改。读这本书，潜移默化中我们把理论运用到了实际。