Hey, if I'm calling myself a great writer, you can, too.

Mostly I'm doing that to make the "you suck and you'll never be published" voices shut up and go away. They've been noisy of late, and I'm getting sick of it.

The other thing might be the person writing that thought they needed to be more "formal" in their writing so used awkward phrasing because it seemed better. It's weird but I know that some people feel that writing has to be "proper" and that ends up with weird stilted language.

Actually, this sounds right. Too many people view writing as Writing, like some mighty alchemy that only a mystical few can carry out. And they view Writing (versus conversation) as Important and Serious. But then when they try to write Important and Serious, they come across as Latka.

The #1 thing I tell people who are having trouble writing because they think it's too hard to Write something Important and Serious is to take what they want to say, and write it in a letter to their best friend. Generally, you can go from that, tweak it a little, and have a very passable piece of writing that doesn't sound like it was written by Latka or MegaHAL.

And a few of us are great writers but poor speakers.

raises hand

Me, too. I'm pretty sure that, in conversation, I come across as Forrest Gump. Or -- to continue the metaphor -- Latka.

People also write without rereading what they've written.

Car Talk mentioned a print ad for a company that makes reference books. The ad read "The only place success comes before preparation is in the dictionary."

(beat)

Grammar and math use the same part of the brain, so if someone tends to not have that organized, logical, rule-happy part working well, they may end up writing like Jackson Pollack painted.

Good writer, and good speaker. I AM snobby towards people with Englisg degrees who are shitty writers. I want to smack them and their alma maters.

Oh, JZ, I would love to see you do that. I would help.

Stephanie, total kudos for you on your goal! Working with a large immigrant population, I totally support you in email. You probably already are aware of National Council of La Raza? They might have some contacts and maybe some grants. I wish I knew more about what you need so I could help. All I do is write letters to my state legislators, sign petitions and help my politically active students. What state are you in? Or, since I'm such a good English teacher, In which state do you live? (IS that stilted or what?)

Yeah, Joe on being one of the Working Masses!

I've edited other people's copy for many years, and PC's example doesn't even begin to plumb the depths of dreadful writing. Try being a lifestyle editor and getting handwritten reports about club meetings or getting employee news from all over the state. A cherished example: "Shakespeare said a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but he never saw our roses here at Plant B." What I don't get is people who can talk and read well, but their writing looks like they had a simultaneous attack of Tourette's and aphasia, mixed with a dash of loss of punctuation.

A sign I've seen in many printers' offices says, "If you're looking for sympathy, it's in the dictionary between shit and suicide."

"Shakespeare said a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but he never saw our roses here at Plant B."

That's...just, oh my.

"If you're looking for sympathy, it's in the dictionary between shit and suicide."

If that's where you're looking, you'll be looking a long, long time.

"Shakespeare said a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but he never saw our roses here at Plant B."

That's...just, oh my.

I'm not seeing what's so awful about that, myself. There are subjects and verbs and a comma in the right place and everything.

Well, it seems to be suggesting that Shakespeare never would have said that if he'd seen the roses at Plant B, which would seem to suggest that those are some foul stank roses; and I'd bet folding money that Boy, do our roses smell foul! was not what the writer meant to say.

Oh. I thought maybe that's what he was trying to say. For whatever reason.

Well, it's possible that's exactly what he meant; it just doesn't sound like something you'd want to brag about in a newsletter. I guess we'll have to wait for Ginger to return and enlighten us.