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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wizzer who wrote (1307)	5/22/1998 11:41:00 AM
From: jbe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4711

It's time to stir up the ants' nest again! Ahem! A brief disquisition on the connection between readin' and writin'. If you don't read with care, you won't write with care. There are several senses in which this is true. First of all, if you read good writing with care, you are more likely to emulate it in your own writing. Secondly, in written exchanges with other people (which is what concerns me at this moment), if you do not listen carefully to what the other person is saying, you will not be able to address his (or her, of course) concerns in your response. The first rule of good (non-fiction) writing, after all, is to zero in on the major points that need to be addressed, as its goal is to make clear, to elucidate. Have you noticed, for example, how often in exchanges on SI people talk past one another? Somebody raises an issue; somebody responds, but not a propos; and the ensuing discussion gets further and further away from the original point. That is a form of bad writing, and I think the cause is not lack of intelligence, but lack of intellectual empathy. In other words, you must be able to "get into the other guy's head," to think his thoughts, as it were, before you can have a genuine discussion with him. If you can't do that, you get murk, instead of clarity. Language becomes, not a "medium of exchange"....but what? How's that for getting the ball rolling? Any more players? jbe