Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 19:18:44 -0700 (MST)
From: Richard J Green <rjg at world.std.com>
Subject: Re: writing well:  strunk & white

On Fri, 16 Jan 1998, Desert AO7 wrote:


> To those puritans of style who want precision in language and
> parsimonious usage, I offer slightly less than 500 words (I think)
> from one of my favorite Faulkner passages. I am asking that the
> Strunks of the list edit it, and post their clarified version to
> this list, in the interest of keeping English safe for clear-
> thinking people.
> 
> "In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep.  And before
> you are emptied for sleep, what are you.  And when you are emptied
> for sleep, you are not.  And when you are filled with sleep, you
> never were.  I dont know what I am.  I dont know if I am or not. 
> Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know
> whether he is or not.  He cannot empty himself for sleep because he
> is not what he is and he is what he is not.  Beyond the unlamped
> wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load
> that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs
> that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though
> it does, since only the wind and rain shape it only to Jewel and me,
> that are not asleep.  And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind
> are _was_, it is not.  Yet the wagon _is_ because when the wagon is
> _was_, Addie Bundren will not be.  And Jewel _is_, so Addie Bundren
> must be.  And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep
> in a strange room.  And so if I am not emptied yet, I am _is_.
>      How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking
>      of home."
> 
> Darl, _As I Lay Dying_

My mother is a fish.

Best,

Rich Green

-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard J. Green                  To e-mail me, please include the
rjg at world.std.com                 word "friend" in the subject line.
http://world.std.com/~rjg