On Writing Well-Chap.7 & 8

1 Interesting Language Points

1.1 the quick and the dead

The writer who cares about the usage must always know the quick from the dead.(from Chap.5)

(biblical)all people, including those who are alive and those who are dead

In this situation, the writer uses "the quick from the dead" to indicate that a writer shall recognize old-fashioned usages to use a word precisely.

All human-beings, the quick and the dead, head to the ultimate meaning for which philosophers have been looking.

1.2 launder

It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon "launder" became a dirty word.(from Chap.5)

1. to put money which has been obtained illegally into legal businesses and bank accounts, so that you can hide it or use it

2. (formal)to wash and iron clothes, sheets etc

The CEO accused of laundering outraged the mob.

1.3 at the helm

...it satisfies your readers' subconscious need for order and reassure them that all is well at the helm.(from Chap.6)

in charge of something; guiding a ship or boat

She, the first female monarch at the helm, was seldom considered as a real controller of the country.

2 Good Words

I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.

We turned out to be liberal in accepting new words and phrases, but conservative in grammmar.

Nobody can write a book or an article "about" something. Tolstoy couldn't write a book about war and peace, or Melville a book about whaling. They made certain reductive decisions about time and place and about individual characters in that time and place--one man pursuing one whale. Every writing project must be reduced before you start to write.

3 Summary in Chinese

第七章接着上一章讲述了作者对于单词用法的看法。通篇以他在American Heritage Dictionary做专家参与评判一个词汇用法是否够格的经历为线索，举出大量实例告诉我们究竟怎样算作合格的单词用法。后面还讲到了作者所在的评审团认为评判语法应当比评判单词严格，评判技术性词汇要松得多。对于尼克松的“水门事件”中的洗钱（launder）这一词的发明（很有趣的是这个词与汉语“洗”相近，所以令人推测这个词是由英语直译来，同时更有意思的是“水门事件”以及之后衍生的各种“门”事件也是从英语中直译），作者认为这就是很好的词汇用法的例子。

第八章“文章前后一致”开启了本书的第二部分，即“写作的方法”。作者首先说一致应该人称一致，时态一致，情感一致。作者举了一篇失败的旅游文章，说明了文章风格前后多变意味着这篇文章四不像。真正的一篇文章应该对于一个话题、一个议题进行讨论，于此展现作者的情感，对社会的看法，乃至价值观、世界观、人生观。而一个失败的作者就是试图什么都写，实际却是ticky十足。这让我联想到了数学的基本组成部分：命题。对于数学学科的学习正是学习一个个的命题，并借此对数学这个整体进行了解。中学之前的数学几乎无法称之为数学，那只是利用简单的数学知识解决实际问题。大学的高等数学等后续内容更不是。只有真正的基础数学才具有本源性。而基础数学就是从一个个的命题的证明或推翻达到的。虽然人文科学与自然科学鸿沟巨大，但这二者却颇有些相似之处。