On Writing Well-Chap.1&2

1 Interesting Language Points

1.1 emulate

His was the seemingly effortless style...that I wanted to emulate(from Introdution)

verb. to do something or behave in the same way as someone else, especially because you admire them

--emulation n.

e.g. I am keeping emulating the nature of mathematical instinctive I ought to have since that is what I major in.

1.2 verbose & verbiage

Bad writer bacame even more verbose because writing was suddenly so easy...(from Introdution)

adj. using or containing too many words

--verbosity n.

e.g. It seems verbose to describe such a simple proposition yet it is not if you think mathematically.

Perhaps a sentence is so excessively cluttered that the reader, hacking through the verbiage, simply doesn't know what it means.(from Chap.2)

n. speech or writing that has many unnecessary words in it

1.3 drudgery & drudge

Good writers welcomed the gift of being able to fuss endlessly with their sentences...without the drudgery of retyping(from Introduction)

n. hard boring work

--drudge n.,v.

SYN. labor, toil, travail, grind, lucubration(hard and difficult study)

I said that professional writers are solitary drudges who seldom see other writers.(from Chap.1)

SYN. recluse

e.g. A mathematician shall not, the lecturer said, be a drudge in seclusion.

1.4 one long burst

Some people write their first draft in one long burst, and then revise(from Chap.1)

It means do it at one time in great effort.

e.g. A proof should be done in one long burst or you will do it from the beginning every time.

1.5 air raid

Such preparations shall be made as will completely obscure all Federal buildings and non-Federal buildings occupied by the Federal gevernment during an air raid for any period of time from visibility by reason of internal or external illumination.

n. an attack in which bombs are dropped on a place by planes

The sentence written by Roosevelt demonstrates exactly what simplicity and complexity are.

e.g. The proof of Fermat's Last Theorem by Wiles is an air raid targeted on the Mathematical field.

2 Good words

2.1

Good writers welcomed the gift of being able to fuss endlessly with their sentences-pruning and revising and reshaping-without the drudgery of retyping. Bad writers became even more verbose because writing was suddenly so easy and their sentences looked so pretty on the screen.

2.2

...I was asked if I would come and talk about writing as a vocation.

It reminds me of the famous speeches addressed by Max Weber, Science as a vocation and Politics as a Vocation, and the first one is just as astonishing as the situation a professional writer is facing written in Chapter 1.

2.3

This is the personal transaction that's at the heart of good non-fiction writing. Out of it come two of the most important qualities that the book will go in search of: humanity and warmth. Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author. It's a question of using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest clarity and strength.

3 Summary in Chinese

第一次很认真地去读原版书，而且选择了这本应用类型的“写作圣经”，很希望自己能够顺畅读完并学到很多知识，就像前段时间一直在读“韦小绿”一样。

读完导论和前两章，发现作者William Zinsser似乎很喜欢用一个具象化的描写作为开头，然后将作者带入情景，再很清晰地点出问题，进入自己的论述。第一段描述大作家E.B.White是这样，第二段用很长很有戏剧性甚至有些幽默的排比式对比，也是这样。

对于导论，似乎一切都围绕“变与不变”这四个字。变的是周遭的时代，是日新月异的技术与环境，也是作者这本三十年来一改再改的书；然而不变的，就像是E.B.White所著的boathouse所代表的一个真正用心灵去写作的人用以专心写作的态度。所谓“非宁静无以致远”即使如此。

第一章点出了作者所强调的两个关键词：人性与温暖。作者举了《瓦尔登湖》的例子（也许是作者崇拜的作家？），告诉我们什么叫将“文如其人”。文章所要传达的正是作者的思想，而这种思想，作为一个真正的作家，应当是人性的光辉与对人类的爱。至于那些琐碎的写作习惯，作者当然认为是不重要的。

第二章写出了作者所坚持的语言原则：简洁。作者开头两端对clutter类型的语言的列举使其丑陋与低效不言自明。（一时联想起老友记里面钱德勒所说的WENUS。）后面作者也利用罗斯福的文章进一步展示了何为简洁的英语（充满大量的日耳曼源词汇）。最后作者阐明了一个道理：“A clear sentence is no accident.”就像作者在前面的部分所反复强调的，修改很重要。

读到这里，我真的十分感慨。作为一个大二的学生，我只能抽出极少数的时间去写作（此处指汉语写作），而每一次写完，读者（大多是我的同学）都会问我：“你在写什么？”我常常会说：我的小说写的是我的情绪，我的情绪喷薄而出我才会有动力去写。写完也很少再去修改。说到这里，你可能已经发现，我就是作者批判的对象。我现在才幡然醒悟，文学化的内容要通过大量的修改和训练创造，而所谓“个性化的表达”，实际上是一个人的积淀，而非突然之间的“才思泉涌”。接下来进行英语写作训练的时候当然也要贯彻这个原则了。