Important notice from the GRAMMAR POLICE. Plz read. This means you.
Liz:
Quote from: rufio on 2009 July 25, 17:29:07
The issue is not whether or not it was a fragment, but when it is ok to use fragments for effect.
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My point, which is sailing merrily over your headpeen, is that wanking on about style ought to be an activity reserved for people who can express themselves correctly on a regular basis.
It seems my first intuition was right, and that the only people who are allowed to make stylistic choices about their language are the people who make certain sanctioned vocabulary choices as well.
rufio, the point you fail repeatedly to grasp is that someone's stylistic choices will only gain legitimacy if she can otherwise display a competent command of basic grammar skills, skills which apparently still elude you, given the total mess you continue to make of sentences like the two I've quoted.
rufio:
If there is something wrong with my grammar, please don't hesitate to tell me what it is. Also, technically speaking, spelling is not the same thing as grammar, and I don't see what it has to do with stylistic choices about syntax. I could understand it if it was a rule that was purely governed by popular perception, but rohina, by asserting that her personal expertise on the subject outranks everyone else's, seems to be indicating that stylistics is actually a kind of objectively quantifiable science. All I am asking for is the objectively quantifiable rules of said science.
rohina:
Oh, for fuck's sake. If you would stop for 2 seconds trying to make me into the villain, you would see that my argument isn't some kind of crazed "only what I say goes" nonsense. Essentially, my position is that spelling, punctuation and grammar are craft; stylistics is art. Compare it to painting: any hamtard can throw paint at a canvas, and maybe sometimes even get an aesthetically pleasing result, but a real artist has command of technique and craft, and knows WHY he/she achieved an aesthetically pleasing result.
Now, the reason I am not going to discuss stylistics with you rufio, is that you want some kind of formula, but the only way I have to explain stylistics is through literary theory, which, as you have said several times, is beyond your understanding.
rufio:
Quote from: rohina on 2009 July 26, 01:48:16
Oh, for fuck's sake. If you would stop for 2 seconds trying to make me into the villain, you would see that my argument isn't some kind of crazed "only what I say goes" nonsense.
That is not what I'm trying to say. Obviously, you are going to do what you want to do, and criticize people's grammar as you see fit; I'm just trying to find out if there is a method to the madness.
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Essentially, my position is that spelling, punctuation and grammar are craft; stylistics is art. Compare it to painting: any hamtard can throw paint at a canvas, and maybe sometimes even get an aesthetically pleasing result, but a real artist has command of technique and craft, and knows WHY he/she achieved an aesthetically pleasing result.
Thank you for the explanation (unless you are still offended by that sort of thing, in which case, feel free to ignore it). Now, I'm not an artist, but I imagine that a real artist does not need to be perfect at every single technique they know in order to produce art. They might well produce a few shoddy pieces of art, but that shouldn't affect the perceived quality of their better ones. Similarly, I don't understand how a person whose ability to spell might be somewhat compromised, or who doesn't have a huge vocabulary, would not be able to use their skills with syntax to use style to convey additional meaning or tone. Obviously, if they use words they cannot spell/do not know the meaning of it doesn't work, but if their deficiencies do not actually adversely affect what they are writing at a given time, I see no reason why it can't be judged stylistically on its own merits.
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Now, the reason I am not going to discuss stylistics with you rufio, is that you want some kind of formula, but the only way I have to explain stylistics is through literary theory, which, as you have said several times, is beyond your understanding.
I don't think I did; I may have said that I didn't know any literary theory, or that I was not interested in devoting large amounts of my time to studying it, but that's different from saying that I cannot learn it. I am actually interested in the specifics of when you think it is ok to use sentence fragments for effect. I don't want a formula, but I would appreciate some rules at least. As you said, an artist will know why their art is aesthetically pleasing, and will probably have an internal set of rules for what times are best to apply certain techniques rather than others.
rohina:
Yes, an artist will know, because there are theories of aesthetics. Similarly, it is possible to analyse the style of a piece of writing. In my business, we call this rhetorical analysis, and there are lots of different ways to do it. From previous conversations with you, I really don't think it is a skill you are going to be able to acquire; not because you are a moron, but rather because you tend to get really hung up on specific grammatical rules, and then you can't see the forest for the trees.
Here's a beginners' challenge for you. Go read Donne's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" meditation, and come back when you can tell me what the stylistic significance of the semicolon is in that piece.
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