Look for all fancy wordings and get rid of them.Ĥ. Have a point and make it by means of the best word.ģ. It is not that I disagree in any meaningful way with his first five principles.ġ. I have just begun rereading this book, so I will write only about the first chapter, “Diction, or Which Words to Use.” This chapter troubles me, actually. Third, I think I always knew that someday I would need to return to it. Second, once upon a time, I actually used the book as a supplement in classes, typing out and photocopying Barzun’s 20 principles of good writing. They knew their specialties well, but they read widely. Barzun was a member of that generation of scholars, who were brilliant without being stuffy. As Ronald Reagan had his version of an idyllic 1950s, I have mine, and I hold on to it tightly. First, as will become very clear as I continue to write this blog, I have strong attachment to the generation of academics and public intellectuals that preceded me. However, I have kept this book for several reasons. There came a time when books passed through my library too quickly for me to claim ownership too tightly. I dropped the “Junior” in the early eighties, and I quit writing my name in books about that time also. Grant, Jr.,” so I am guessing I purchased the book within a few years of it publication. On the flyleaf of the book, I inscribed my name “Lyman W. I am beginning my refresher course in writing by reading Jacques Barzun’s 1975 Simple and Direct.
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