I was out and about recently and espied this notice in the train station:
Use the handrail, by Terry Freedman
Here is what I don't understand: how are you supposed to run on the handrail? Especially when it's so narrow
7 Features of Bad Writing suggests some common characteristics of poor prose. Any one of these 'sins' would serve as an indicator, especially if they occur more than once or twice.
Here are seven handy techniques with which to enrich your writing. Used sparingly, they can be very effective at bringing a piece to life.
This book may be thirty years old, but its advice is still pertinent. If you want to have a blitz or crackdown against, or shake-up of, bad writing (all examples of 'tabloidese'), then this is the book for you.
Why do some writers write badly? Plus links to examples of bad writing.
When did “interesting” become a synonym for “useful”? If anything, when the word “interesting” is used by an English person, usually means the opposite.
Here’s a piece of writing I submitted for a creative writing course at the City Lit. It was received quite well, and one of the other students said it was the most accurate description of Santa Monica that she’d ever read. Others liked the dialogue. Me? I still chuckle over the misunderstanding about drive-in movies!
This course will look at examples of constraints created by some of the Oulipo’s main proponents, including the Hundred Thousand Billion Sonnets, the Metro Poem, and others.
A girl I taught was highly intelligent, very helpful and had a great sense of humour. Unfortunately, though, whenever she disagreed with somebody she immediately flew into a temper, insulted them and told them to go forth and multiply — though rather more crudely than that. I imagine she has a huge following on Twitter these days, as that seems to be the main way of “communicating” for a lot of people.
Unless you’re so poor at spelling or English in general that a spell-checker wouldn’t do you much good anyway, there isn’t really any excuse for this sort of thing.