1. Lesson Nine : Elegance

2.  Relentless simplicity can be dry, like unsalted
meat and potatoes.
 A flash of elegance can fix a thought in our
minds and give us a flicker of pleasure.
 J. Williams thinks the most elegant elegance
is disarming simplicity, “when you think you
have written something fine, strike it out”.
 Knowing the devices of clarity and elegance is
not the same as knowing how to use them.

3.  A graceful sentence
has balance and
symmetry among its
parts, echoing another
in
sound, rhythm, structu
re, and meaning.

4.  The most common
balance is based on
coordination.
 In the following
slides, we’ll look at
two versions of the
same sentence, one
of which is balanced
and one of which is
not.

5. “The national unity of a free people depends upon
a sufficiently even balance of political power to
make it impracticable for an administration to be
arbitrary against a revolutionary opposition that is
irreconcilably opposed to it.”

6. “The national unity of a free people depends
upon a sufficiently even balance of political
power to make it impracticable for the
administration to be arbitrary and for the
opposition to be revolutionary and irreconcilable.”

7.  Why is the second version balanced?
 We hear one clause and phrase echo another in word
order, sound, and meaning.
 Each significant word in one phrase echoes another in
its corresponding one:
▪ “For the administration to be arbitrary and for the
opposition to be revolutionary and irreconcilable.”
 Lippmann balances the phrasal topics of
administration and opposition, and the stressed
sounds and meanings of arbitrary, revolutionary, and
irreconcilable.

8.  We can also balance structures that are not
grammatically coordinate.

9.  Subject balances the object:
 Scientists | whose research | creates revolutionary views of the
universe | invariably confuse | those of us | who | construct reality
from our common-sense experience of it.
 Predicate of a relative clause in a subject balances
the predicate of the sentence:
 A government | that is unwilling to | listen | to the| moderate
hopes | of | its citizenry | must eventually | answer | to the| harsh
justice | of | its revolutionaries.

10.  A direct object
balances the object of
a preposition:
 Those of us concerned with our school systems will not
sacrifice | the intellectual growth of | our innocent children |
to| the social engineering of | incompetent bureaucrats.

11.  Here are some first halves of sentences to finish
with balancing last halves.
 Those who argue stridently over small matters...
 We should pay more attention to those politicians
who tell us how to make what we have better than
to those...
 Some teachers mistake neat papers that rehash
old ideas for...
 Example: Those who keep silent over the loss of
small freedoms...will be silenced when they
protest the loss of large ones.

12.  Those who argue stridently over small
matters are unlikely to think clearly about
large one.
 We should pay more attention to those
politicians who tell us how to make what we
have better than to those who tell us how to
get what we don’t have.
 Some teachers mistake neat papers that
rehash old ideas for great thoughts wrapped in
impressive packaging

13.  Find a key noun just before the tacked-on
clause, pause after it with a comma, repeat the
noun, and continue with a restrictive relative clause
begining with that.
 The British Empire brought its version of
administrative bureaucratic order to societies around
the globe, an order that would endure in those
lands long after Britons retreated to their own
shores.
 The resumptive modifier repeats a key word, order.

14.  Rhythmical balance is  By using and, or, nor, and
usually created when the yet, we can easily balance
first element in a balance is non-coordinated phrases
shorter than the next ones. and clauses.
 The most striking feature of  Used prudently, these
elegant prose is balanced devices can emphasize an
sentence structures. important point or conclude
a line of reasoning with a
flourish.

15.  How you begin a sentence determines its
clarity; how you end it determines its rhythm
and grace.

16.  We expect words that deserve stress (heavy words)
at the end of a sentence.
 A sentence that ends on words of slight
grammatical weight (light words) may feel
anticlimactic.
 Prepositions = Light
 Adjectives/Adverbs = Heavier
 Nouns/Nominalizations = Heaviest

17.  ...until in God’s good time, the New
World, with all its { power and might } steps
forth to {the rescue and the liberation} of the
old.
– Winston Churchill
 He could have written:
 ...until the New World rescues us.

18.  Revise the following sentence using light/heavy
words appropriately:
 “Studies into intellectual differences among races is
a project that only the most politically naive
psychologist is willing to give support to.”

19.  “Studies into intellectual differences among
races is a project that only the most politically
naive scientist is willing to support.”

20.  Williams gives us
four ways to end a
sentence with special
emphasis:
1. of + heavy word
2. Echoing salience
3. Chiasmus
4. Suspension

21.  In other words, a prepositional phrase
introduced by “of”.
 Back to Churchill’s example:
...the rescue and the liberation of the old.
 The light of, and lighter a or the quickens the
rhythm of a sentence just before the stress of the
climactic monosyllable, old.

22.  The following example is ‘flat’.
 “In the second century AD, the Roman
Empire comprehended the earth’s fairest,
most civilized part. Ancient renown and
disciplined valour guarded its extensive
frontiers.”

23.  In the second century of the Christian era, the
Empire of Rome comprehended the fairest
part of the earth, AND the most civilized
portion of mankind. The frontiers of that
extensive monarchy were guarded by
ancient renown AND disciplined valour.

24.  These sentences end weakly. Edit them for clarity and concision, then
revise them so that they end on more heavily stressed words.
 1. If we invest our sweat in these projects, we must avoid
appearing to work only because we are interested in
ourselves.
 2. Throughout history, science has made progress
because dedicated scientists have ignored a hostile
public that is uninformed.
 Example:
 “Our interest in paranormal phenomena testifies to the fact that we have
empty spirits and shallow minds.”
Our interest in paranormal phenomena testifies to the emptiness of our
spirits and the shallowness of our minds.

25.  1. If we invest our sweat in these projects, we
must avoid appearing to be working only for
our own self-interest.
 2. Throughout history, science has
progressed because dedicated scientists have
ignored the hostility of an uninformed public.

26.  At the end of a sentence, readers hear special
emphasis when a stressed word or phrase balances
the sound or meaning of an earlier one.
 When we hear a stressed word echo an earlier
one, these balances become even more emphatic.
 Example from Peter Gay’s Style in History:
 Apart from a few mechanical tricks of
rhetoric, manner is indissolubly linked to matter;
style shapes, and in turn is shaped by substance.

27.  From the Greek word for “crossing”.
 It balances elements in two parts of a sentence;
the second part reverses the order of the
elements in the first part.
 Example:
 A concise style can improve both | our own (1A) thinking (1B) |
and | our readers’ (2A) understanding (2B).
 A concise style can improve not only | our own (1A) thinking (1B)
| but | the understanding (2B) of our readers (2A).
 The first sentence does not use chiasmus; the second does.

28.  You can end a sentence with a dramatic climax.
 The less often you use it, the bigger its bang when you do.
 Self-consciously elegant
writers often begin a
sentence with a series of
parallel and coordinated
phrases and clauses just so
that they can delay and
thereby heighten a sense
of climax

29.  Exercise 4:
What did Fallows do to make this sentence
suspenseful?
 If [journalists] held themselves as responsible for the
rise of public cynicism as they hold “venal” politicians
and the “selfish” public: if they considered that the
license that they have to criticize and defame comes
with an implied responsibility to serve the public – if
they did all or any of these things, they would make
journalism more useful, public life stronger, and
themselves far more worthy of esteem
- James Fallows. Breaking The News

30.  Fallows opens that sentence with:
 three if-clauses,
 then ends it with
 a triple coordination ending on its longest
member, which itself ends with an of +
nominalization.

31.  When writers
combine all these
elements in a single
sentence, we know
they are aiming for
something special.

32.  Most writer’s don’t plan the length of their
sentences.
 Artful writers use the length of a sentence for
a purpose
 Short sentences can be used:
 to strike a note of urgency
 terse certainty
 passion

33.  Extravagantly long sentences are also used
by self-conscious stylists
 The point:
 “Think about the length of your sentences only if
they are all longer than thirty words or so or
shorter than fifteen. You sentences will vary
naturally if you edit them... But if the occasion
allows, don’t be reluctant to experiment.”

34.  Look at the following passage and try combining
the short sentences to change its style:
 “The teacher or lecturer is a danger. He very seldom
recognizes his nature or his position. The lecturer is
a man who must talk for an hour. France may
possibly have acquired the intellectual leadership of
Europe when their academic period was cut down to
40 minutes. I also have lectured. The lecturer’s first
problem is to have enough words to fill 40 to 60
minutes. The professor is paid for his time, his
results are almost impossible to estimate...”

35.  Clarity, vigour, symmetry, and rhythm are
great achievements. But that does not excite
us to admire the reach of its imagination.

36.  Passage without metaphors:
...however much we like that moment, we
know that its perpetuation would interrupt
and spoil the movement of the melody. We
begin to fidget, feeling he has denied the
natural rhythm, has interrupted the regular
movement from beginning to end, and that
though he makes a pretense of wholeness, it
is in fact a repeated end.

37. ...If the symphony tries to go on too long, if at a
certain point the composer exhausts his
creative ability and tries to carry on just for the
sake of filling in the required space of time, then
we begin to fidget in our chairs, feeling that he
has denied the natural rhythm, has broken the
smooth curve from birth to death, and that
though a pretense of life is being made, it is in
fact a living death.
Alan W. Watts, The Meaning of Happiness

38.  Metaphors serve different ends, depending
on context.
 Used to make language more intense
 Used to explain
 Used to play
 Be careful that a metaphor does not distort
what we want to express.

39.  “Societies give birth to new values through the
osmotic flow of daily social interaction. Conflicts
evolve when old values collide with new, a
process that frequently spawns a new set of
values that synthesizes the conflict into a
reconciliation of opposites.”
 “The classic blitzkrieg relies on a tank-heavy
offensive force, supported by ground-support
aircraft, to destroy the defender’s ability to fight
by running amuck in his undefended rear, after
penetrating his forward defenses.”

40.  We all write unfortunate
metaphors, so when you
do, don’t think you’re the
only one who has.
 The only way to master them
is to keep trying.

41.  The risk in striving for elegance is that you fail
spectacularly and never risk it again. Williams
encourages us to accept with good humour
those first failures that we all survive.
 You won’t acquire an elegant style just by
reading the book. You must read those who
write elegantly until their style runs along
your muscles and nerves.

42.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/mait/5184709006/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/rahulpradhan/4956527456/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/42000933@N02/4076938462/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/dicknella/52748429/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/sepehrehsani/5766453552/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/jsprig/5472428803/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewvenn/366873545/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/rubberdragon/6258677092/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/joriel/2360038974/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/suewaters/1842179165/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/vasta/12867185/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/marxpix/2223146662/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/sterlic/4299631538/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/croland/5162735235/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/dalydose/324264361/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/deathtogutenberg/2697035003/