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From: gadfly@ihuxn.UUCP (Gadfly)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Teaching Writing (was Re: Writing, programming, music and mechanics)
Message-ID: <1460@ihuxn.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Jun-86 11:17:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxn.1460
Posted: Thu Jun 26 11:17:29 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jun-86 06:05:33 EDT
References: <2671@sdcc6.UUCP> <1445@ihuxn.UUCP> <2679@sdcc6.UUCP> <1452@ihuxn.UUCP> <921@frog.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 30

--
> But if, when I creep line by line through someone's text, suggesting
> ways to make their ideas stand out more clearly, I'm not teaching 
> writing, what _am_ I doing?  We both thought I was doing _something_!
> 
> 				STella Calvert

You're teaching thinking.  At least that was my experience when I
was writing and editing for a living (not much of one, I admit).
Snappy sentences, active voice--it gets the author to realize
that she has something to say.  Net.nlang has had a much-too-long
discussion about whether "hopefully" and terms of that ilk are
correct usage.  Wrong question.  The question should be, and it
will depend on the particular instance, "Is 'hopefully' being used as
a hedge, a diffusion of responsibility, instead of the more forceful
'I hope'?"

I used the pronoun "she" up there not to demonstrate what a nifty
feminist guy I am, but to underscore a problem with meek writing.
I've found that meek people, most often women, write meekly (surprise).
When they start to write more assertively, they become more assertive.
A person who writes "I hope" has a stake in the outcome, and is
someone you'd better think twice about letting down.
-- 
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