Writing.

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Svnla

Lifer
Nov 10, 2003
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So, how does one improve his/her English grammar to write better? Which books or websites or ???
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
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Looks is all that matters to me. Good grammar generally looks good. I'm definitely anti-abbreviation. Putting in the effort for grammar makes anything you write look better so long as you aren't too picky about it.

About the above, no joke read George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language." Its a very good read. The thesis is basically this:

The slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.

Its a whole page of text, yet awesome to read.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

(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 a word out, 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, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article.

I feel that information like this is golden and it is just literally not taught to anyone anymore.
 
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Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
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I don't usually worry about it too much. Even if someone's pretty good with their grammar... well, the phrase "to err is to be human" comes to mind. :biggrin:

Now, if you constantly mess up the easiest of things, then that just looks rather bad. I do have to agree with another poster that the chatspeak stuff looks far worse to me than someone using a homonym of the word that they intended.

You missed your Oxford comma in the first sentence.

Given how that's usually considered optional, I would've complained about the lack of a comma before the conjunction ("and") in the third sentence. :p

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So, how does one improve his/her English grammar to write better? Which books or websites or ???

Just soak it in over time. Whenever you see a thread about grammar and such on here, give it a read. I think I write fairly well, but there are still things that I learn from time to time!
 

Kyle

Diamond Member
Oct 14, 1999
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I care at work - not really anywhere else. I do fix obvious spelling errors or grammatical errors, but generally don't worry too much about it.
 
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