After reading this article it made me think about previous writings I have done and I have used Engfish in my writing. My biggest problem with writing is expressing my thoughts with clarity as well as making my writing come alive, which sometimes will leave the reader bored. Like the author stated at the end about the third grader “writing sharply and truly making his words come alive” is something older students tend to forget when writing. I agree with the author on that statement because I do that quite frequently without even paying attention to what I am writing. In my college experience I am constantly writing papers and I sometimes procrastinate, so when I am meeting a deadline my writing will lack. Now I have become more aware of what Engfish is and now I will try to pay closer attention to my writing.
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- One More Tool for the Toolbox Summary
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3 comments:
I thought the article on “Engfish’ was dumb. It was a very long and boring way of saying that students have a tendency to write pretentiously. There is nothing wrong with writing in better English than you speak in everyday conversation. In fact it should be encouraged. If writing in conversational English was the excepted norm then words like “ain’t” would be in the dictionary. They aren’t. People should not aspire to write like an uneducated child, no matter how plain their language is. And the quote by Nietzsche was completely out of place in this silly article.
Jim,
I agree with your point that there are shorter ways to say, "Don't write pretentiously." This single statement is quite convincing for some. But I must ask, What is "better" English?
Also you may find this link interesting: ain't
Hi Jim, Thanks for your open thoughts. A person outside of our class answered you - I have restricted our blog for in-class use only now, because it would get too confusing to deal with other people's answers, too (especially for me grading :-)).
I have to admit that you're right; one cannot "legalize" words like "ain't" in Standard English contexts, but for some artful expressions they are useful -- see texts by Dunbar and Hurston, for example.
The quote by Nietzsche was NOT in the original book by Ken Marcrorie, but was a decoration of the teacher who made the website that cited Marcrorie's text. This person just wanted to find a matching quote for her stance that children's talk is pure and unspoiled, and that adults have to learn a lot before they are able to talk like children again.
The article did not mean to reproach students for writing pretentiously; rather, it aimed at teachers and textbook editors who write ENGFISH themselves, and teach students to write it to please their instructors.
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