Prompt 4

Collin Bertram
ENG328: WRITING STYLE, TECHNOLOGY
Professor Krause
July-18-2004
Prompt 4
Reading blogs on line was kind of informative; it was also kind of uninformative. At first I had trouble finding peopleís blogspots, but then I realized I could type their addresses in rather than using the links from their web sites. That was frustrating. A lot of the web sites didnít work well enough for me to use as links toward blogspots. But I am sure they will be working soon.
I learned that Ed and I agree on the Strunk and White book. We both thought that we could use it sometimes but not always. He said that it, ì . . . would never make a good text book for early composition classesî. I think heís right. Students wouldnít get enough information out of that book; a teacher would have to either explain a lot in class, or give out supplementary information. But when Ed said that the book was contradicting itself when it said, ìDo not Overwriteî, and then ìDo not Explain too muchî, I donít follow or agree. The book isnít trying to help people write other instructional books. The rules or suggestions at the end would be very different if it was supposed to advise you on writing a book similar to itself. If that were the case it would not have said to write naturally. Instructions found in a book are never really naturally written, they probably shouldnít be. Anyway, I donít really think the authors had anything useful in mind. They just wanted a lot of people to do things in one way instead of many, incidentally that one way was their way.
I agree with most of Billís blog post. Yes, language will always be changing, and for the most part prescriptive grammar is a failure in the long run. Lessons that my elementary school teachers said were important have already changed. A lot of what we are learning now will be different by the time I am teaching. Especially all that MLA stuff, that changes from year to year and no one ever knows or even cares what the rules say most of the time anyway. But, I donít think the changes the book made from things like he being changed to she reflects too much about the idea of language being fluid. That is a change in the culture of this country and many others, not a change in language. Grammar rules are not affected by civil rights, neither is spelling. But, if more people and a larger variety of people write (other than white men), the change in language will probably change more, and change faster.
I agree with what Ed said, and I agree with what Bill said, even if there were some parts that didnít seem believable. If I were to evaluate the overall ideas of these two blog users I would vote in agreement with both of them. The general consensus is that the book had a lot of stupid attitude behind it that just isnít reasonable, but the book is a useful way to improve your writing to some extent.