oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde
In the end each clan on the outlying coasts
beyond the whale-road had to yield to him
,– Beowulf, Prologue
A brilliant metaphor.
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connect to listen to prologue
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GcAULmWJskG0QQVCvs2eBa16iaY54Krg/view
— posted by Roger W. Smith
June 2026
Having already lost a lot of money earlier in the season, Handel now realized the folly of his gamble, and announced in London’s Daily Advertiser that he was closing his ambitious season early. He eloquently expressed the profound sorrow this failure* had given him in his announcement: “As I perceived, that joining good Sense and significant Words to Musick was the best Method of recommending this to an English Audience; I have directed my Studies that way, and endeavour’d to show, that the English language, which is so expressive of the sublimest Sentiments, [italics added] is the best adapted … to the full and solemn Kind of Musick. I have the Mortification now to find that my Labours to please are become ineffectual.” (program notes, Carnegie Hall)
*The premiere of his oratorio Hercules, in January 1745.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
March 2026
excerpts – ‘A Note on the Family Tongue’
“SINCE BOTH WJ AND HJ were lifelong writers, the most enduring influence from their father was his gift of language.” — F. O. Mathiessen
Posted here (PDF above):
F. O. Mathiessen, “A Note on the Family Tongue”
IN F. O. Mathiessen, The James Family: Including Selections from the Writings of Henry James, Senior, William, Henry, & Alice James (New York: Afred A. Knopf, 1961), pp. 101-112
— posted by Roger W. Smith
May 2025
My wife called something to my attention in the New York Times this morning. She had a problem with the second paragraph in the following story:
“On Eve of Trial, Discovery of Carlson Texts Set Off Crisis Atop Fox”
By Jim Rutenberg, Jeremy W. Peters, and Michael S. Schmidt
The New York Times
April 26, 2023
The second paragraph read:
Private messages sent by Mr. Carlson that had been redacted in legal filings showed him making highly offensive and crude remarks that went beyond the inflammatory, often racist comments of his prime-time show and anything disclosed in the lead-up to the trial.
I think I know why the sentence ended up the way it did. Because of newspaper-writing conventions regarding conciseness. The rule or standard is: Get rid of as many words as you can whenever and wherever they can be omitted (without omitting key facts or becoming unintelligible).
But there is a problem here.
comments OF HIS PRIME-TIME SHOW is vague and fuzzy. Were they comments that Carlson alone made (this is implied, but it could also include comments made by guests/interviewees)? Were they comments that he spoke or that were posted on the screen in bullet point fashion? In my mind it’s too vague. And awkwardly worded. It seems that comments ON his prime-time show would be better (sounds better to the ear). But then that’s not clear, because it could be anyone’s comments.
The best way to say it (undoubtedly) is comments made by Carlson on his prime-time show. This adds three words (the phrase made by Carlson on replaces the word of).
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My post
regarding Professor Strunk’s admonition, “Omit Needless Words.” (or, are long, complex sentences bad?)
is pertinent here.
I quoted Professor Brooks Landon in his lecture ““Grammar and Rhetoric” (lecture 2, “Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer’s Craft”; The Great Courses/The Teaching Company).
Unless the situation demands otherwise, sentences that convey more information are more effective than those that convey less. Sentences that anticipate and answer more questions that a reader might have are better than those that answer fewer questions. Sentences that bring ideas and images into clearer focus by adding more useful details and explanation are generally more effective than those that are less clearly focused and that offer fewer details.
Many of us have been exposed over the years to the idea that effective writing is simple and direct, a term generally associated with Strunk and White’s legendary guidebook The Elements of Style, or we remember some of the slogans from that book, such as, “Omit needless words.” … [Stunk concluded] with this all important qualifier: “This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that he make every word tell.” … Strunk’s concern is specifically with words and phrases that do not add propositions to the sentence [e.g., “owing to the fact that” instead of “since”].” … “Omit needless words” is great advice, but not when it gets reduced to the belief that shorter is always better, or that “needless” means any word without which the sentence can still make sense.
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Addendum:
My journalism school instructor, New York Times city reporter Maurice (Mickey) Carroll, taught me to tighten up my stories. His editing was invaluable. Here is an example from one of my assignments.
So I understand and appreciate the need for conciseness in newspaper reporting. But I also think Professor Landon’s astute observations should be kept in mind.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
April 27, 2023
Scholars who visit this site may be interested in a post of mine on footnoting on my personal site, rogersgleanings.com, at
I can’t understand why the topic does not engage more readers of scholarly works. Word processing software makes footnote and endnote formatting a breeze — so why can’t they be done to make consulting them less of a chore? — and, in the examples I have given, it is more than a chore, it’s enough to drive a scholar who wants to find a source mad with frustration.
— Roger W. Smith
December 2022
Walt Whitman, ‘Slang in America’ – North American Review, November 1885
Posted here (PDF file above):
Walt Whitman, ‘Slang in America”
North American Review
November 1885
“Language, be it remembered, is not an abstract construction of the learned, of of dictionary-makers, but is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity. ….”
— posted by Roger W. Smith
August 2022
“These children that come at you with knives, they are your children. You taught them. I didn’t teach them. I just tried to help them stand up.”
— Charles Manson, trial testimony, November 17, 1970
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“The museum’s exhibition about the statue was partly a response to the defacing of it by protesters, who in 2017 splashed red liquid representing blood over the statue’s base. The protesters, who identified themselves as members of the Monument Removal Brigade, later published a statement on the internet calling for its removal as an emblem of ‘patriarchy, white supremacy and settler-colonialism.’
“ ‘Now the statue is bleeding,” the statement said. “We did not make it bleed. It is bloody at its very foundation.’ .” [italics added]
— “Roosevelt Statue to Be Removed From Museum of Natural History,” by Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times, June 21, 2020
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This is impoverished rhetoric (by the so-called Monument Removal Brigade). Which is actually inane.
It shows the impoverishment of their ideas, mental and moral vacuity on the part of so-called revolutionary reformers, and the emptiness of vandalism (excuse me, protest actions).
I could have done better in the third grade.
— Roger W. Smith
June 2020
Something occurred to me when I was half awake this morning.
You may say it’s self evident or trivial.
I was reading something in the newspaper and a sentence or two came into my mind.
(Sort of like one is driving and sees a sign ahead.)
He is dead.
His writing lives on.
My brain works like a writer’s. I think in sentences and paragraphs and very literally– like I’m always writing an English paper.
How do you punctuate that, I thought.
1. He is dead, his writing lives on.
2. He is dead; his writing lives on.
3. He is dead. His writing lives on.
Option 1 – No. Maybe okay for a fiction writer, but a comma splice.
Option 2 – I like to use a semicolon, but not here.
Option 3 – The best choice. Keep as two short, independent sentences. Reads best and is clearest.
Sentences are indeed the building blocks of expository writing. Short or long.
— Roger W. Smith
May 21, 2020
In a text I bought for my German course, Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook, 2nd Edition, by Heiner Schenke, Anna Miell, and Karen Seago, pg. 7, it says:
A verb with a personal ending — e.g., Woher kommst du? Ich wohne in Frankfurt, Woher kommst du? — is called a finite verb. This is in contrast to the infinitive form of verbs.
I never knew.
In other words, a verb when used with a subject and tense — we speak, they spoke, English is spoken — is finite, determinate; there is definite action, occurrence.
But, yes, Shakespeare can write to be or not to be, but to be is timeless, so to speak. But, I was satisfied — this refers to the past and an actual point on time, whether specified or not.
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I love learning new things. In the category of learning “I never knew that.” Something simple that should have been obvious, but that for me represents a discovery.
When you learn it, some fundamental that increases overall understanding is now part of your mental repertoire.
— Roger W. Smith
February 2020
Roger's rhetoric 