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English grammar as a semi science.

BrettNortje

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I have for a long time been writing short stories, and, find my short stories sound completely different to normal ones. you see, my stories are about events rather than detail, and about relationships rather than individuals.

Besides that, i have found there is a lot of structure to writing, structure you probably have never heard of before, like pace. this would be where you count the letters of each sentence and word and then make sure you allot it so that people go quickly from one sentence to another, building a heart rate in the reader where they will feel excited or in suspense.

Then there is tone - you can alter the tone of voice being used by using the correct words. everyone has images going through their mind while they read, and, you can alter them to a certain degree by your choice of words as each sentence leads into another. this would be where you create a feeling too.

Language is all about emotions, as nobody would read if they were not learning something or at least having fun, yes?
 
So, let's get to heart rates? basically, the human heart beats about seventy five times a minute, which is close to sixty beats a second. this means, each brain impulse will process one or two letters, as these are not pictures to be processed but characters. this means we can make short words that will be recognized in one beat, yes?

Now, if it were that the heart needs to beat a electrical impulse to your brain to process each small word, or twice to process each big word, it would be better to have one small, then one big word. this would leave us with a constant rhythm where the brain gets into a pattern each sentence, of course. with a pattern like this, there will be beauty, as, all patterns are beautiful. this is like a fractal, a simple architecture design that has structure and patterns being observed, leading to better clarity, of course.
 
Have you ever heard of the golden ratio? that is a ratio in music that states that where the best notes should be played for a perfect song. it is through deviance and personality where the true beauty in imperfections lie, of course, as having a perfect meal would be imperfect without a little grease, of course.

So, as far as i can remember, the best notes for music lie at four five and eight, among others. this means that the best words to the eye would also be four five or eight letters long, so, making a list of these words, and trying to use them as much as possible, while still sticking to your fifty five to eighty letters a sentence would be to your advantage.
 
Floccinaucinihilipilification
 
Have you ever heard of the golden ratio? that is a ratio in music that states that where the best notes should be played for a perfect song. it is through deviance and personality where the true beauty in imperfections lie, of course, as having a perfect meal would be imperfect without a little grease, of course.

So, as far as i can remember, the best notes for music lie at four five and eight, among others. this means that the best words to the eye would also be four five or eight letters long, so, making a list of these words, and trying to use them as much as possible, while still sticking to your fifty five to eighty letters a sentence would be to your advantage.

You don't know what the golden ratio is. It's usually called the golden section.
 
So, we have covered paces and tones, yes? of course, there are as many varieties of rules as you can imagine, hopefully i have imagined enough to help you with your writing, but, i am not done yet, of course.

Now, let's discuss 'structure.' when someone looks at the page, it forms an artwork of sorts. this would be due to the actual 'look' of the page, no less. if you were to use my older structure of a guideline format of two, three and four lines, mixed every now and then with about eight lines, then you would see it actually even looks nice. everybody wants to look at pages that look nice, of course.

Then, if you were to put this to science, not merely an 'artsy guideline format,' you could say that typically there are two sentences, three sentences, and so forth. this means that the topic is changing often, as, some people have short attention spans, and, other have long attention spans. this makes it easy for both, of course, as those with a longer span will be spoiled due to the quick movements of characters and objects.

Why not think of this like a 'object based science?' this would be where you create objects for your story, and characters. one mistake many writers make is to add too many objects or characters at the same time - this is why the paragraphs are so long, because they know it works to flesh out their objects and characters. this means, of course, that the 'short attention span person' will feel less excited as the paragraph or scene goes on, hoping to get to events, yes?

Another thing to think about is locations. sometimes characters meet up, and that means a shared location. using one you have already discussed will bring about a feeling of familiarity, as even people reading books have a feeling of comfort in regular territory. this means that they will be familiar people meeting in a familiar place, making the reader more comfortable with the scene, and less withdrawn from the scene due to new lots of characters and locations, of course.
 
So, we have covered paces and tones, yes? of course, there are as many varieties of rules as you can imagine, hopefully i have imagined enough to help you with your writing, but, i am not done yet, of course.

Now, let's discuss 'structure.' when someone looks at the page, it forms an artwork of sorts. this would be due to the actual 'look' of the page, no less. if you were to use my older structure of a guideline format of two, three and four lines, mixed every now and then with about eight lines, then you would see it actually even looks nice. everybody wants to look at pages that look nice, of course.

Then, if you were to put this to science, not merely an 'artsy guideline format,' you could say that typically there are two sentences, three sentences, and so forth. this means that the topic is changing often, as, some people have short attention spans, and, other have long attention spans. this makes it easy for both, of course, as those with a longer span will be spoiled due to the quick movements of characters and objects.

Why not think of this like a 'object based science?' this would be where you create objects for your story, and characters. one mistake many writers make is to add too many objects or characters at the same time - this is why the paragraphs are so long, because they know it works to flesh out their objects and characters. this means, of course, that the 'short attention span person' will feel less excited as the paragraph or scene goes on, hoping to get to events, yes?

Another thing to think about is locations. sometimes characters meet up, and that means a shared location. using one you have already discussed will bring about a feeling of familiarity, as even people reading books have a feeling of comfort in regular territory. this means that they will be familiar people meeting in a familiar place, making the reader more comfortable with the scene, and less withdrawn from the scene due to new lots of characters and locations, of course.

Who's we? Nobody is paying any attention to you.
 
You don't know what the golden ratio is. It's usually called the golden section.

That's funny. The Golden Ratio, the Golden Section, the Golden Mean, the Golden Spiral. And, for even more fun, you can have the Golden Spiral vs. the Rule of Thirds and the well-known Phi Grid.
The Golden Ratio vs. The Rule of Thirds: Which is Best? ? PictureCorrect

All joking aside, it is an interesting video if you like taking pictures.

All joking aside, my son wrote a paper for a seventh-grade history class. He asked me to read it and I said, "Charles, this is terrible. You can do better than this. There is almost no punctuation, the spelling is horrible, the sentences aren't sentences."

"My English teacher said that grammar, spelling, punctuation, and structure were all artificial constructs and all that matters are my thoughts." I spent a week teaching my son that his English teacher was a fool. He grew up to be a man who can read and write which is a rarity today.
 
That's funny. The Golden Ratio, the Golden Section, the Golden Mean, the Golden Spiral. And, for even more fun, you can have the Golden Spiral vs. the Rule of Thirds and the well-known Phi Grid.
The Golden Ratio vs. The Rule of Thirds: Which is Best? ? PictureCorrect

All joking aside, it is an interesting video if you like taking pictures.

All joking aside, my son wrote a paper for a seventh-grade history class. He asked me to read it and I said, "Charles, this is terrible. You can do better than this. There is almost no punctuation, the spelling is horrible, the sentences aren't sentences."

"My English teacher said that grammar, spelling, punctuation, and structure were all artificial constructs and all that matters are my thoughts." I spent a week teaching my son that his English teacher was a fool. He grew up to be a man who can read and write which is a rarity today.
Wow, an English teacher saying that... any that say that are doing a real disservice to their pupils, should be fired for that horrendous sentiment. Grammar is difficult, tough enough to teach without putting roadblocks in student's minds.
 
All joking aside, my son wrote a paper for a seventh-grade history class. He asked me to read it and I said, "Charles, this is terrible. You can do better than this. There is almost no punctuation, the spelling is horrible, the sentences aren't sentences."
holy turds, you criticized your son ???

I spent a week teaching my son that his English teacher was a fool.
and then you actually taught him to take the correct path

He grew up to be a man who can read and write which is a rarity today.
and bingo...it worked

:mrgreen:

:thumbs:
 
Wow, an English teacher saying that... any that say that are doing a real disservice to their pupils, should be fired for that horrendous sentiment. Grammar is difficult, tough enough to teach without putting roadblocks in student's minds.

This would have been in the mid-seventies when such nonsense was fashionable. His history teacher taught that the Holocaust never happened. Home school, as an addition to public schooling, was essential.

I'm not sure they teach English any longer. When I was working, until the late 90s, we would arrest college students who couldn't write a confession.
 
Rhymes have always been a focal point of poetry, and, you must admit they do have a certain charm to them, yes? if you were to make a poem that rhymes every now and then, or, has the same effect as rhymes, then it would be better for your 'piece,' yes?

Rhymes have been around since the very old days. basically, the way a rhyme works is to repeat a sound after an interval, thereby brining a pattern to the writing. if this is done with the correct breathing between intervals, then it could really charm people.

So how do we rhyme effectively? how do we make the person change the pace they read at to make for a more charming piece of writing? well, if you were to use a lot of small words, or words that are used over and over in sequence, then there will be a new trend in reading where the reader will start predicting or altering the pace they 'skim' at, thereby making for a more 'fluid and tempered reading habit.'

This could be about writing as if there was a repeated word. the more you repeat a word, the quicker people read it. if it is a sentence - you know when people say "it is so cold, oh it is so cold..." then they would see this and start to read faster, yes? this would be because they don't like to read repetitions in the middle of the story, as they might be excited to see what happens next, or, they may be bored with a scene or character. by repeating yourself like this, you can make a 'hypnotic message' where the person will 'skip' the next entry, sending it straight to the subconscious! this is because we see the letters and words, but are getting frustrated, so you could slip a message in there if you so wish, of course.

Now, the rhyming comes from repeated syllables. these are parts of words that sound the same, of course, and they will create a pattern, as i have already shown, and people find beauty in patterns. if you were to have a lot of people walk around in a circle, soon they will fall into a pattern too. so, if you write a lot of rhyming words, you can really hypnotize people - watch out for those musicians!
 
That's funny. The Golden Ratio, the Golden Section, the Golden Mean, the Golden Spiral. And, for even more fun, you can have the Golden Spiral vs. the Rule of Thirds and the well-known Phi Grid.
The Golden Ratio vs. The Rule of Thirds: Which is Best? ? PictureCorrect

All joking aside, it is an interesting video if you like taking pictures.

All joking aside, my son wrote a paper for a seventh-grade history class. He asked me to read it and I said, "Charles, this is terrible. You can do better than this. There is almost no punctuation, the spelling is horrible, the sentences aren't sentences."

"My English teacher said that grammar, spelling, punctuation, and structure were all artificial constructs and all that matters are my thoughts." I spent a week teaching my son that his English teacher was a fool. He grew up to be a man who can read and write which is a rarity today.

I was taught English back in the days when they really taught English. I was referring to him saying that the golden ratio only applied to music.
 
After carefully weighing the two, your use of floccinaucinihilipilification and a discussion of some of the actual mechanics of writing, I would judge yours to be the worthless one.

There is something wrong with your judger.
 
Floccinaucinihilipilification

I did that with this thread when the poster demonstrated an ignorance of, or disdain for capitalisation. I totally floccinaucihilipilificated his theories.
 
"My English teacher said that grammar, spelling, punctuation, and structure were all artificial constructs and all that matters are my thoughts."

That's a pretty standard response from anyone here should you criticise their use of language, spelling or grammar. I always point out that those things are the tools that allow you to accurately express all those thoughts that matter. Bad spelling and poor punctuation make those important ideas impossible to grasp. They always point out that I must be a 'Grammar Nazi'. :shrug:

You did your son a solid service in teaching him how to express himself better.
 
Have you ever heard of the golden ratio? that is a ratio in music that states that where the best notes should be played for a perfect song. it is through deviance and personality where the true beauty in imperfections lie, of course, as having a perfect meal would be imperfect without a little grease, of course.

So, as far as i can remember, the best notes for music lie at four five and eight, among others. this means that the best words to the eye would also be four five or eight letters long, so, making a list of these words, and trying to use them as much as possible, while still sticking to your fifty five to eighty letters a sentence would be to your advantage.

As a holder of a completely useless degree in music I need to clarify something you said here. The best notes being 4 5 and 8 doesn't make sense really because which note values the 4th 5th and 8th note are change depending on key. However, if you're referring to interval quality, you would be somewhat correct. A major 4th or 5th would be pleasant intervals. A major 8th, not so much. There are actually "rules" for composing "proper" music, as imposed by one J.S. Bach.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony
 
That's a pretty standard response from anyone here should you criticise their use of language, spelling or grammar. I always point out that those things are the tools that allow you to accurately express all those thoughts that matter. Bad spelling and poor punctuation make those important ideas impossible to grasp. They always point out that I must be a 'Grammar Nazi'. :shrug:

You did your son a solid service in teaching him how to express himself better.

I told my son that you can think about a table or a dog or a shovel without words. You can picture them. But, concepts like honesty, decency, loyalty, responsibility are abstract and you have to use language to consider them. If you can't use language reasonably well, you can't think reasonably well.
 
Wow, an English teacher saying that... any that say that are doing a real disservice to their pupils, should be fired for that horrendous sentiment. Grammar is difficult, tough enough to teach without putting roadblocks in student's minds.

I agree wholeheartedly with your statement here. My heart goes out to any poor soul attempting to learn English as a second language. The rules governing proper usage of English are convoluted and at times contradictory. The proof is in the pudding as the saying goes. An entirely too large of a percent of native English speakers use grammar so bad it's like nails on a chalkboard to me. I wonder (if someone with a more in depth understanding of a language other than English (I know a smattering of French and even less German) could educate me), do native speakers of other languages struggle to use proper grammar, or is that somewhat unique to English and it's overly complex grammatical system?
 
I told my son that you can think about a table or a dog or a shovel without words. You can picture them. But, concepts like honesty, decency, loyalty, responsibility are abstract and you have to use language to consider them. If you can't use language reasonably well, you can't think reasonably well.

I think that that was precisely the point Orwell was making when he invented the idea of 'Newspeak'. Controlling language controls thinking. Telling people that using language well is unimportant is essentially saying that thinking is equally unimportant.
 
I agree wholeheartedly with your statement here. My heart goes out to any poor soul attempting to learn English as a second language. The rules governing proper usage of English are convoluted and at times contradictory. The proof is in the pudding as the saying goes. An entirely too large of a percent[too great a percentage?] of native English speakers use grammar so bad [badly?]it's like nails on a chalkboard to me. I wonder (if someone with a more in depth understanding of a language other than English (I know a smattering of French and even less German) could educate me), do native speakers of other languages struggle to use proper grammar, or is that somewhat unique to English and it's overly complex grammatical system?

Everyone struggles with grammar. Some languages have less complex grammar than English, some much more challenging. I speak a few languages. In the former category, I'd say that Spanish and Thai grammar is much simpler than English. In the latter category, in my experience, Turkish grammar is fiendishly more difficult.
 
I think that that was precisely the point Orwell was making when he invented the idea of 'Newspeak'. Controlling language controls thinking. Telling people that using language well is unimportant is essentially saying that thinking is equally unimportant.

Bingo. A tourist visiting Oaxaca asked me, "What's wrong with Mexicans? I see so many people with Downs Syndrome."

"Well, two things. Families keep their children at home and take them to dinner on Sunday and take them shopping You see them around. A man I know and his daughter sit in a cafe in the zocalo and do her homework. The second thing is in Mexico they aren't killed."

"They aren't killed in the U.S., either."
"Really? I read that 87% of the amniocentesis tests that say the child might have Downs Syndrome result in an abortion."
"We don't consider that killing."
"How convenient. I don't consider strangling liberals as killing either."

We see the same thing happening with the word, euthanasia. It means a murder for a really nice reason but liberals want to pretend it's the same as assisted-suicide except the victim hasn't indicated he wants to die.
 
Bingo. A tourist visiting Oaxaca asked me, "What's wrong with Mexicans? I see so many people with Downs Syndrome."

"Well, two things. Families keep their children at home and take them to dinner on Sunday and take them shopping You see them around. A man I know and his daughter sit in a cafe in the zocalo and do her homework. The second thing is in Mexico they aren't killed."

"They aren't killed in the U.S., either."
"Really? I read that 87% of the amniocentesis tests that say the child might have Downs Syndrome result in an abortion."
"We don't consider that killing."
"How convenient. I don't consider strangling liberals as killing either."

We see the same thing happening with the word, euthanasia. It means a murder for a really nice reason but liberals want to pretend it's the same as assisted-suicide except the victim hasn't indicated he wants to die.

I disagree with your example, but agree with you that the meaning of words matters enormously. Abortion is just one of a multitude of issues directly affected by semantics. Meanings matter. I cringe when someone dismisses an argument by saying: "that's just semantics." Such a line assumes that the meaning of words and language is a matter of no importance. Think of the disputed meanings of words like: 'marriage', 'terrorism', 'debt', 'refugee', 'poor', or 'choice' and we can see that semantics are vital.
 
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