It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. I wonder if you will recognise this. It is the opening sentence of the novel Paul Clifford , by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. I have just seen Bulwer-Lytton's name brought up, and the above sentence quoted, in response to the question, "Who have been the world's worst published writers?" I have not read more of Bulwer-Lytton than a few quotes such as that above, but I cannot think he really deserves to be numbered among 'the world's worst published writers'. Tellingly, the person who quoted the above did not give any reason why we are supposed to consider this such bad writing, apart from mentioning that the opening phrase is a cliché...
Some sentences tell us a great deal, not because of their essential information, but because of the way they are phrased, or their context. It is possible to learn something new from a book even if it does not present you with any new facts, because of the way the facts are assembled and because of the phrasing used in presenting the facts. I found the following sentences, from Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations , quite piquant: In the nineteenth century successful industrialization and emigration reduced the political impact of young populations in European societies. The proportions of youth rose again in the 1920s, however, providing recruits to fascist and other extremist movements.
I've just read a little of this article in the Times Literary Supplement , written by one of the cultural scions of Messrs Strunk and White: Plain Speaking - How to Write Well I do have some sympathy with writing plainly and maximising the virtues of the demotic Anglo-Saxon (in a way that I have not done in this sentence), but I can't help thinking there's a pathology posing as common sense in a lot of this hand-wringing about simplicity. For instance, from the opening paragraph: "Our teacher is a seasoned journalist who insists that we learn how to edit our own prose ruthlessly. (If he saw this paragraph, he would cut 'seasoned' – a cliché – as well as all the words ending with -ly.)" She goes on to say that her teacher would eschew not only obvious jargon, but anything "long and Latinate". Is this not a kind of stylistic hair shirt, the pursuing of rules for their own sake? Just take the first sentence of the article's first para...
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