How to Write a Sentence

There is a quotation on the inside cover of How to Write a Sentence that reads, “If you know sentences, you know everything. Good sentences promise nothing less than lessons and practice in the organisation of the world.” This quotation comes from the book's author, Stanley Fish, and at first sounds like a bold statement. But if you read this book, as I have, you may well end up a convert to the truth of these words.

Fish tells his reader that, while the content of sentences may be infinite, the forms and shapes of sentences are finite. If, through study and practice, we become familiar with these shapes and how they work, we can use them as vehicles for how own words, for our own message.

This method, sentence deconstruction, is preferable, Fish says, to examining sentences through the cold lens of English rules and grammar.

Fish uses examples of excellent sentences throughout the book. He cracks these sentences apart, revealing their inner workings and bones. How could we not see these things before?

This is not a simple book; at least I did not find it so. But it is useful, inspiring, and I wanted to begin it again as soon as I turned the last page.

Language Log

If you, like me, day-dreamed your way through High School English, then you’ll probably find the ‘Language Log’ website more than a little intimidating.

I hope you do.

I hope you do, because I don’t want to be alone in not understanding the difference between a fricative and an unvoiced-consonant.

Life is lonely enough.

Life is lonely enough without the realisation that those people who focused during English class – the nerds – have now gathered together. They have formed a ‘Word Nerd’ collective and they are laughing at people like me. They are laughing at me because I thought I knew about language until I visited their website.

Those word nerds were sitting in the dark, trying to stifle a giggle. They flicked on the light and started laughing and pointing as soon as I typed the URL for their website (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/) into my browser.

I froze like a deer caught in a car’s headlights. I tried to back away slowly, but it was too late: they sensed my weakness, my lack of linguistic knowledge, and they pounced.

Well, they didn’t actually pounce. We’re talking about me visiting a website here. But I was intimidated, and I think they knew it.

They may not have.