Five of us went to dinner tonight (at Bonefish Restaurant). In attendance were Patty and me (correct grammar might be ‘I”) plus our two sons (Adam and Justin) as well as one of Adam’s long-time buddies (Bon 2 {yes that is really his name [it is an African name]})
In the course of some of the small talk (there was a lot of that) Adam proclaimed that both he and I have a tendency (if not a habit) of over-explaining ourselves. Since I had never really heard of a word such as “over-explaining” (or zillions of other words) I asked him what he meant.
He proceeded to tell me (and anybody else who wanted to listen in{oops; ended with a preposition}) that he was reading a book (an uncommon occurrence because he is usually too busy for recreational reading) in which the author (I don’t recall the name of the book or the author) was constantly explaining himself by employing parentheses (Also parenthesis). Apparently, it was not uncommon to see two or more examples in a single paragraph.
Adam went on to suggest that both he and I do the same thing in everyday discussions (although he was not doing it as he was explaining himself). Quite frankly, I had never noticed him “overexplaining” himself, but I will freely admit, that I sometimes take too long to get to the point in normal conversations (if there is such a thing).
I pondered whether my writing (such as articles like this one) was also dominated by over-explaining. I concluded (perhaps wrongly) that I am not as long-winded in print as I am in person. I do not usually use too many parentheses (or brackets). That does not mean my writing is perfect (or even close to it). In fact, I think it would be a better use of my time to focus on using more adjectives. (As an example, let me reword that last sentence: The fair-minded author had the unrestrained audacity to presuppose his own humble readers would derive deeper pleasure from his routine insertion of fantastic and colorful descriptions of nouns {but I suppose that could also be overdone})
Thank you for the fun idea, Adam!
Perhaps next time we can review in what part of the sentence a preposition should be.
What grammatical issues catch your attention?
Grammar Girl iza good plase two lern boute sum stuf.
John McIntire writes good articles about grammar.
You’ll enjoy “The Best of The Best” and more at Mental Floss,
Drop by my other blog about family finances from time to time.
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2 comments:
making up words as a sort of short-hand for texting really gets my goat. Bahhhhhh. U R Stupid if you do that.
Matt: Good to know, I'm going to start abbreviating all of my texts to you :)
Dave: I will never forget my college freshman English Comp class. There I was a recent high school graduate, assistant editor to the school newspaper, layout editor for the yearbook and journalism major extraordinaire. Imagine my shock when I received my first major essay back with a big red F on the top. The teacher wrote below it "You use too many dangling participles." I pulled out my "A Writer's Reference" book, learned what the hell a dangling participle was and mended my evil ways (keeping in mind this was pre-internet 1996, and we still referenced books, not Wikipedia). I got a C- in that class. I guess I done figured that I ain't a very good writer after all.
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