52 min listen
Helen Sword, "The Writer's Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose" (U Chicago Press, 2016)
Helen Sword, "The Writer's Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose" (U Chicago Press, 2016)
ratings:
Length:
54 minutes
Released:
Aug 6, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Helen Sword, writing champion, brings us into the word gym. Or maybe kitchen. Either way, The Writer's Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose (U Chicago Press, 2016) is a short, sharp introduction to great writing based around 5 principles:
--use active verbs whenever possible;
--favour concrete language over vague abstractions;
--avoid long strings of prepositional phrases;
--employ adjectives and adverbs only when they contribute something new to the meaning of a sentence;
--reduce your dependence on four pernicious “waste words”: it, this, that, and there.
There are examples of the good - William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Martin Luther King Jr., John McPhee, A. S. Byatt, Richard Dawkins, Alison Gopnik, and well, the bad. But you can fix the bad - really Dr Sword's point.
Dr Helen Sword received her doctorate in comparative literature from Princeton University and has lived since 2001 in New Zealand, where she is a Professor of Humanities at the University of Auckland and runs a private writing consultancy, WriteSpace Limited.
Bede Haines is a solicitor, specialising in litigation and a partner at Holding Redlich, an Australian commercial law firm. He lives in Sydney, Australia. Known to read books, ride bikes and eat cereal (often). bede.haines@holdingredlich.com
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--use active verbs whenever possible;
--favour concrete language over vague abstractions;
--avoid long strings of prepositional phrases;
--employ adjectives and adverbs only when they contribute something new to the meaning of a sentence;
--reduce your dependence on four pernicious “waste words”: it, this, that, and there.
There are examples of the good - William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Martin Luther King Jr., John McPhee, A. S. Byatt, Richard Dawkins, Alison Gopnik, and well, the bad. But you can fix the bad - really Dr Sword's point.
Dr Helen Sword received her doctorate in comparative literature from Princeton University and has lived since 2001 in New Zealand, where she is a Professor of Humanities at the University of Auckland and runs a private writing consultancy, WriteSpace Limited.
Bede Haines is a solicitor, specialising in litigation and a partner at Holding Redlich, an Australian commercial law firm. He lives in Sydney, Australia. Known to read books, ride bikes and eat cereal (often). bede.haines@holdingredlich.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language
Released:
Aug 6, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Robert Lane Greene, “You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws and the Politics of Identity” (Delacorte Press, 2011): Isn’t it odd how the golden age of correct language always seems to be around the time that its speaker was in high school, and that language has been going to the dogs ever since? Such is the anguish of declinists the world over, by New Books in Language