Thanks, Hank:
The Pleasures of Reading...
I love to read. When I have nothing to do I pick up a book and read. Sometimes I read for fun. Other times I read to learn something. I really enjoy reading.
Sometimes I become unhappy while reading. I will be enjoying a fine story when all of a sudden a big word will stare back at me. Now I know a few big words but, after all, isn't it true that in simplicity there is beauty?
Take the other day. While reading a particularly engrossing story I ran across the word "scree." I later found out that the word "scree" meant "pebbles and rocks." Why didn't the author just say "pebbles and rocks?"
Another thing. People just can't say anything the simple way any more. Yesterday I read about a guy "adroitly manipulating the shifting mechanism!" So he threw the car into second gear.
Now if I were a writer, I would try to avoid confusing my readers. We all feel that confused and pompous prose has no place in contemporary society. It does no good to engulf you readers in a sea of indistinguishable trivia.
I feel quite strongly about this. I feel that perpetual adherence to enigmatic expression stultifies intellectual response. Furthermore, excess circumlocution inevitably leads to incomprehensible mayhem.
When authors engage their literary crampons into my lethargic intellect, I feel like poking my pate into a catatonic mound of fronds and lianas. I would rather ascend icy scarps or embroil my ego into a capacious sea of undulating hummocks than perambulate through a plethora of insatiable verbiage.
Take the other day. While reading a particularly engrossing story I ran across the word "scree." I later found out that the word "scree" meant "pebbles and rocks." Why didn't the author just say "pebbles and rocks?"
Another thing. People just can't say anything the simple way any more. Yesterday I read about a guy "adroitly manipulating the shifting mechanism!" So he threw the car into second gear.
Now if I were a writer, I would try to avoid confusing my readers. We all feel that confused and pompous prose has no place in contemporary society. It does no good to engulf you readers in a sea of indistinguishable trivia.
I feel quite strongly about this. I feel that perpetual adherence to enigmatic expression stultifies intellectual response. Furthermore, excess circumlocution inevitably leads to incomprehensible mayhem.
When authors engage their literary crampons into my lethargic intellect, I feel like poking my pate into a catatonic mound of fronds and lianas. I would rather ascend icy scarps or embroil my ego into a capacious sea of undulating hummocks than perambulate through a plethora of insatiable verbiage.
It all leaves me flaccid as a sprag.
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