break any these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous
I came across this the other day in my reading attributed to one Eric Arthur Blair.
Mr. Blair wrote some rules on writing.
He said:
But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English.
I love that last line.
One could keep all of them and still write bad English.
BTW, Eric Arthur Blair was much better known under the name of George Orwell.
instagrammable moments lacking are listed don’t we need to pee?
Ginia Bellafante, writing in the New York Times (Must We Gentrify the Rest Stop?) about the changes at rest stops on the New York State Thruway stated:
Five years ago, the New York State Thruway Authority conducted a survey of more than 2,600 drivers to take measure of the customer experience at the service areas lining the 570 miles of road that make up one of the largest toll highways in the country, stretching from the edge of the Bronx up past Buffalo. Whether participants were traveling for work or for pleasure, they had needs that apparently were going unfulfilled.
The resulting report listed as chief takeaways that leisure travelers complained about unappealing interiors and the lack of “Instagrammable moments.”
Instagrammable moments?
Instagrammable moments!
When I was studying history back in college, I was taught over and over, in lectures, in statements, in LOUD RED LETTERS WRITTEN on term papers, to AVOID A SENSE OF PRESENT MINDEDNESS.
What was an instagrammable moment 10 years ago?
What will be an instagrammable moment be ten years from now.
Since the beginning of time people traveling from point A to point B have hoped for a clean, well lighted place to answer a call to nature.
And if it wasn’t too much trouble, maybe a decent cup of coffee and a bun or a biscuit or a doughnut maybe.
Why do these two things do not figure in as the chief takeaway on a survey of customer experience of service areas?
As Ms. Bellafante writes: In a society so casually stratified that major airlines now offer five classes of service and airport security lines can be bypassed for an annual fee, rest stops remain one of the few spaces in modern life that can be generally counted on to level us.
As my Dad would have put it, “Everybody has to pee.”
That won’t change but if it comes it to that, spare me anything instagrammable that captures that moment.
Ahhhh freudenfreude! that bliss that you will feel when someone else succeeds
I am not much on bucket lists or New Year’s resolutions.
I have to say there is nothing on my ‘list’ that I need to do or just would like to do before I die that would make my life complete.
I am a sinner saved by grace and while I know I need to work out my Salvation with fear and trembling, I also KNOW that when I do die, bold will I approach the throne, confident and wrapped in the gift of that grace.
Not much I can do or see here on earth to improve on that in my back pocket.
As for resolutions, I guess if its worth doing, it worth doing now rather than the an arbitrary state-by-date set by a calendar devised by people a long time ago.
In the spirit of the New Year and looking ahead (maybe not forward) to the 2023, I pass along Ms. Pearson’s 6 Tips.
Assume people like you.
Don’t underestimate small acts of kindness.
Embrace the power of the casual check-in.
‘Turn toward’ your partner throughout the day.
Acknowledge the ‘normal marital hatred,’ too.
Cultivate ‘freudenfreude.’
That’s it.
The article does give some background on each tip, but just by themselves, if read introspectively, has just enough words to make the point.
And it’s is that last that really caught my eye.
Cultivate ‘freudenfreude’.
Ms. Pearson writes;
Unlike schadenfreude, when we take pleasure in others’ misfortunes, “freudenfreude” describes the bliss we feel when someone else succeeds — even if it doesn’t involve us.
There are benefits to sharing in someone else’s joy.
It can foster resilience and improve life satisfaction.
Freudenfreude.
I was not aware of the word but maybe I was aware of the feeling.
My sister Mary once wrote of our Mother something like, that our Mom had the gift to enjoy and be proud of other people’s good fortune without being or appearing to be envious.
Freudenfreude.
I think of my Mom at Church.
I remember how people would seek out my Mom to tell her things.
They got a job.
They finished school.
Their child was getting married.
It didn’t matter what.
But what ever it was, my Mom was excited and happy for the news and excited and happy in such a way that whoever was talking to her was pleased that she was excited and happy for them.
I remember a Sunday sermon where the Pastor was preaching on spiritual gifts.
He mentioned the gifts in the Bible like the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophecy.
Then he mentioned everyday things.
The gifts of song.
Some people can just sing, he said.
The gifts of teaching.
Some people can just teach, he said.
Then he said some people being happy, so happy they can just make you feel good.
Some people, if you just sit next to them, make you feel good.
Then he paused.
Then the Pastor pointed over to the left at my Mom.
“Go sit next to Mrs. Hoffman.”
“FIND OUT HOW SHE DOES THAT!”
Freudenfreude.
At my Mom’s funeral, we all got a chance to say something about our Mom.
My brother Tim demonstrated calling my Mom with good news.
He took out a cell phone and showed how you would punch in her number and say hello when Mom answered and then tell her the good news.
He immediately took the phone from his ear and held it arms length.
And we all laughed.
Because, no matter the good news, Mom would SCREAM OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and if you didn’t hold the phone away from your ear, you stood a good chance of losing an ear drum.
My Mom felt bliss expressed when someone else succeeded.
Freudenfreude.
My Mom and my 4 youngest kids Lexi, Ellie Dasia and Jack
Seems like there hasn’t been a lot of freudenfreude going around lately.
A lot of schadenfreude in today’s world.
A lot of just plain meanness.
A lot of just plain ugliness.
A of lot of watching other people dealing with meanness and ugliness.
A little Freudenfreude …
The bliss we feel when someone else succeeds — even if it doesn’t involve us.
Ms. Pearson closes with this paragraph.
One easy way to experience more freudenfreude is to check in with your friends and loved ones about their small victories or the bright spots in their day.
Doing so turns you into a “joy spectator” — and gives you an opportunity to see the people around you at their best.
Going into 2023 I plan to engage freudenfreude.
Going into 2023 I want to take advantage of any opportunity to see the people around me at their best.
It can foster resilience and improve life satisfaction.
one important thing! don’t have a real story you don’t have a real self
Two stanzas a six syllable word in the wrong spot.
Oh well, my blog, my rules.
Taken from the passage:
A reasonably accurate and coherent autobiographical narrative is one of the most important things a person can have. If you don’t have a real story, you don’t have a real self.
As it was written in the opinion piece, The Sad Tales of George Santos, by David Brooks, in the Dec 28, 2023 New York Times.
Mr. Brook’s comments:
America has always had impostors and people who reinvented their pasts.
(If he were real, Jay Gatsby might have lived — estimations of the precise locations of the fictional East and West Egg vary — in what is now Santos’s district.)
This feels different.
I wonder if the era of the short-attention spans and the online avatars is creating a new character type: the person who doesn’t experience life as an accumulation over decades, but just as a series of disjointed performances in the here and now, with an echo of hollowness inside.
No Haiku For You 