The Daily News

1   We're baaaaaaack!!!!!!!

2   Yesterday I took a trip back through, as Sir Paul McCartney once put it, "...the mists of time..." just to examine some things I posted in the distant past.

3  You should never do that, unless you intend to dismantle them brick by brick.

4   I found things dating back at least ten years. After a fashion, I found myself cuddled up with fingers draped over my eyes and imaginary fingernails elongated to my chin.

5   It began innocently enough. 

6   I had happened into a Spirit store and got nostalgic for my annual trek through the purple and orange nestles of Halloween.

7   

8   Before I knew it I found myself surrounded by Disney daemons. 

9   I decided to back quickly away and out of that  area and get myself to a safer spot. 

10   Let's hear it for old, white Lay Z Boys.

11

12  No, I have one. An old white Lay Z Boy. I sit in it and doze off to boring teevee and sports. 

13  Last night I settled into it and decided, "You need to change direction with tomorrow's DN."

14   Uh...yup.

15   I awakened this morning with E.B. White stuck in my head.

16   If you visit the aforementioned time mists, you may recall that E.B. White was the author of Charlotte's Web, which perhaps not coincidentally came up in conversation yesterday.

17   We were visiting Caitlin and Josh. Josh had a bag full of DVD's and said, "Hey! We have Charotte's Web!"

18   E.B. White had wandered through the ticker tape in my head earlier in the day, so I thought it simply another of a bazillion coincidences. 

19   I had been thinking of beginning a series of writing features for this nonsense, sort of like when the fire department cleans up and shines an old engine so that children could play on it at county fairs.

20   When I woke up this morning I thought of how White was a student of Professor William Strunk, Jr. of Cornell University. In 1919,  Professor Strunk had written a book on writing entitled The Elements of Style, and used it with his students, including E.B. White. Years later, Professor Strunk passed away, and White was approached by MacMillan, who commissioned him to revise the work of Professor Strunk so that this simple and concise writing book would work for everyone. That "little book" became a staple in colleges around the world, and remains so to this day. It is still being revised by White's step-son Roger Angell, and will hopefully remain with us for years to come. 

21   If you wish to improve your writing instantly, make Strunk and White's The Elements of Style your mini-Bible. 

22   I'm pretty sure it is in the $7 to $10 category and probably available at any major book store.

23  So I decided this morning to take that concept and offer out some ideas on how to become a better writer. I do hope to credit Strunk and White for most of what is here.

24  All apologies.

25   Upon awakening I dashed into the bedroom and looked at the bookcase where The Elements of Style stands along side the other essentials: Stephen King's On Writing, Warriner's English Grammar and Composition, first, second, fourth courses, as well as the college edition, and a quaint creative writing book called Write Now! Insights Into Creative Writing by Anne Wescott Dodd published in 1973 by Learning Trends, a division of Globe.

26  I recall some uppity professor or other who once looked down his glasses, and from the end of his nose advised, "Oh, and don't EVER read ANYTHING published by Globe."

27

28  I thought it was the best book on writing I had ever seen, and dragged it with me through my career. I once lost it and hunted everywhere I could online and couldn't locate it. I almost lost my mind. It eventually surfaced.

29   I am looking over my own glasses at my enormous coffee table, and stacked one atop the other at various angles are four or five of these books, supported underneath with a solid foundation: The Best of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. This is better than The Guardians of the Universe, or at least just as good. 

30  Anybody lookin'?

31  So where do we begin?

32  How's this for a warm-up: The word "good" is an adjective. You do good things, you read good books, but you don't do things good, you do them well. 

33  Got it?

34  So, "You did that good!" and "She ran the race good!" are incorrect. "You did that well!" and "She ran that race well!" are correct. 

35  IN EVERY SINGLE CASE.

37  Got it?

38  Any questions?

39  Note: If someone says to you, "You did that good!" don't correct them. It is impolite. This is a major reason people don't understand the diff. 

40  <ahem>

41   Here is another: Avoid putting the word why after the word reason. Also, don't put the verb is after the word reason either. Instead say, "The reason I don't like pancakes is that they make me gain weight."  Don't put "The reason why I don't like pancakes is..." Or  don't put, "The reason is I don't like pancakes because they make me gain weight." I grant you, this last example appears a bit extreme but I have known people who have constructed such things, and worse. 

42   So here, allow me to hit you over the head: No reason why! No reason is! No, no, NO!!!

43   See how this works?

44   Grammar rants. 

45   To be fair, these books on my coffee table are stacked almost nine-inches high.

46   It is a bit daunting.

47   So let us move briefly to Professor Strunk, who began his work with the word it's of all words. It's means it is, pure and simple. "It's common knowledge that Los Angeles is further east than Reno." This sentence is correct, since it's means it is.

48   Now take this sentence: "The bird broke its beak." This is correct because the word its is possessive. The broken beak belongs to the bird, alliteratively speaking. 

49  People mess this one up because it is the opposite of the rule-of-possessives rule. Let us have a look at  the Warriner's Fourth Course rule of possessives: To form the possessive case of a singular noun, add an apostrophe and an s.

EXAMPLES   a day's work

                       Eva's sculpture

                       cat's whiskers

50   I think I'll stop here. It is, after all, Tuesday, and I am just wetting my beak, to use an old Godfatherian term. 

51   I'm not quite sure where to go with any of this, but I would like you to look at my stuff every now and again for handy-dandy writing tips. I hope to throw more helpful tips out there as I mosey through these dawg days.

52   And always do things well. You'll garner compliments. And you'll know the reason you are getting those compliments. 

53   I gottago.

54   Have a GREAT day.

55   See you again.

56   Peace.

~H~  

fin.