I found this article by some guy named Frank Visco as I was stumbling from site to site and it is probably one of the funniest things I have ever read. The best part about it is that it does not explicitly declare its comedic value, but relies on its subtle irony to provoke a laugh. I think it speaks strongly for the power of words to evoke emotion. One of my professors this year once said, "Never use a multisyllabic word when a big word will do." Here are some of Visco's words of advice.
My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:
Avoid alliteration. Always.
Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
Employ the vernacular.
Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
Contractions aren't necessary.
Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
One should never generalize.
Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
Profanity sucks.
Be more or less specific.
Understatement is always best.
Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
One-word sentences? Eliminate.
Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
The passive voice is to be avoided.
Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
Who needs rhetorical questions?
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3 comments:
I laughed out loud when I read this. For how intentionally amusing Visco is, to me this is a definitely a commentary on how the power of words can be limited by rules like these, that we so regularly employ upon ourselves. This brings me back to the question we have asked many times earlier in the semester, "What is considered literate?" It certainly does not seem to abide by all these rules, which is one of the things I think Visco is definitely trying to get across to the readers.
This is so funny and creative! I really loved figuring out each one of these word jokes. I was wondering if it is really Standard English to abide by all these rules Visco writes about? Maybe some of these rules are getting to be old-fashioned; perhaps Standard English needs to be updated to reflect the times. Are using contractions or profanity really such an abomination? I bet all those Standard English geeks would be appalled at my suggestion. haha
This was a funny and amusing article to read. I thought it was really clever the way that Visco used the "wrong" examples as the rules. I read through the list the first time just for fun, but then I went back through and really thought about each of the rules. I agree with what Kelsi said because I think that maybe Standard English does need to be updated as time progresses. Everything else in society is changing, so why not make a few changes as to what is considered proper English?
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