Feltre School

Why, Wherefore Ask You This?

A gentleman named Brabantio was once a senator in the Republic of Venice. His daughter, Desdemona, was, as fate would have it, quite beautiful, and he, of course, was quite protecting of her....

Why, Wherefore Ask You This? - Writing Smartly A gentleman named Brabantio was once a senator in the Republic of Venice. His daughter, Desdemona, was, as fate would have it, quite beautiful, and he, of course, was quite protecting of her. One young suitor by the name of Roderigo the father had already parried away, but the desperate man called y...

Sailing into Unknown Waters

An instructor of mine in college once admonished his class of graduate students that they all read too much....

Sailing into Unknown Waters - Writing Smartly An instructor of mine in college once admonished his class of graduate students that they all read too much. It was spring, the term almost over, and he threw down the challenge that we all should enroll in a drawing class over the summer. His judgment surprised everyone, because both the scholarshi...

Now It’s There, Now It’s Not

It is one of the fundamentals of writing that every word must count. Consider these two sentences: …...

Now It’s There, Now It’s Not - Writing Smartly It is one of the fundamentals of writing that every word must count. Consider these two sentences: the bank president hired three new people whose job was to guard the guards, and the bank president hired three new people whose job it was to guard the guards. The only difference between the two is t...

Freedom Struggling

Jacob Needleman was an American philosopher and teacher who articulated in clear, straightforward prose the basic questions of philosophy which have preoccupied civilizations from the ancient world to the present....

Freedom Struggling - Writing Smartly Jacob Needleman was an American philosopher and teacher who articulated in clear, straightforward prose the basic questions of philosophy which have preoccupied civilizations from the ancient world to the present. Among his many titles are Real Philosophy: An Anthology of Universal Search for Meanin...

Chopping Choppiness

The exercise of revising a rough paragraph of simple sentences can concentrate our attention and sharpen our skills, resulting in a more natural flow of ideas and expression....

Chopping Choppiness - Writing Smartly The exercise of revising a rough paragraph of simple sentences can concentrate our attention and sharpen our skills, resulting in a more natural flow of ideas and expression. We should remember that what is called a final draft is just the last iteration in a line of approximating productions. There...

The Curious Origin of School

The traditional study of the language arts finds its justification in the belief that self-reflection is the special characteristic of human beings, and that this ability to recognize oneself as a person is possible—or even begins to be possible—through the cultivated use of language....

The Curious Origin of School - Writing Smartly The traditional study of the language arts finds its justification in the belief that self-reflection is the special characteristic of human beings, and that this ability to recognize oneself as a person is possible—or even begins to be possible—through the cultivated use of language. One depart...

Separate But Connected

Here’s another chance to sharpen our grammatical tools. Is this sentence correct: he is one of those persons, who is always on time…...

Separate But Connected - Writing Smartly Here’s another chance to sharpen our grammatical tools. Is this sentence correct: he is one of those persons, who is always on time. We will need either two knives or one double-edged sword to examine this deceptively simple sentence, one blade for grammar and the other for punctuation. When we re...

Governing Whom

To keep our technical skills sharp, let’s look at a sentence which presents a second-order grammatical question. We know that every preposition has an object, and when that object is a pronoun, it often assumes a unique form, because some pronouns vary their spelling to indicate their grammatical function. This change in spelling (or position) is called inflection, and the conceptual scheme that organizes inflection with nouns and pronouns is called…...

Governing Whom - Writing Smartly To keep our technical skills sharp, let’s look at a sentence which presents a second-order grammatical question. We know that every preposition has an object, and when that object is a pronoun, it often assumes a unique form, because some pronouns vary their spelling to indicate their grammatical ...

The Precise Truth

If a dictionary defines words, what does a thesaurus do? The word means treasury in Latin, and the basic answer, of course, is that a thesaurus synonymizes, that is, it suggests words close in meaning to one another. Some thesauri merely list groups of related words, others discern the subtle shades of meaning between them. It’s the latter we want as writers....

The Precise Truth - Writing Smartly If a dictionary defines words, what does a thesaurus do? The word means treasury in Latin, and the basic answer, of course, is that a thesaurus synonymizes, that is, it suggests words close in meaning to one another. Some thesauri merely list groups of related words, others discern the subtle shades...

To Persuade Is Not Enough

In the study of language, a distinction is made between persuading and convincing. To persuade someone is to induce one to act, whether physically to do something or mentally to believe something. To convince, on the other hand, is to show the reasons something should or should not be acted upon. In the traditional scheme of the first three liberal arts, called the…...

To Persuade Is Not Enough - Writing Smartly In the study of language, a distinction is made between persuading and convincing. To persuade someone is to induce one to act, whether physically to do something or mentally to believe something. To convince, on the other hand, is to show the reasons something should or should not be acted upon. In...