Words & Exprssions
1. circulate
A student asked if we found it useful to circulate in in the literary world.(p4)
explanation: If you circulate at a party or other social occasion, you move among the guests and talk to many different people.
e.g. After John had circulated amongst his guests, dinner was announced.
2.gusto
"I love symbols!" Dr. Brock exclaimed, and he described with gusto the joys of weaving them through his work.(p4)
explanation: if you do something with gusto, you do it with a lot of eagerness and energy
e.g. They sang hymns with great gusto.
3.mollify
During the 1960s the president of my university wrote a letter to mollify the alumni after a spell of campus unrest.(p7)
explanation: if you mollify someone, you make them less upset or angry.
e.g.Francis immediately set about mollifying her...
4.a spell of
During the 1960s the president of my university wrote a letter to?mollify?the alumni after a spell of campus unrest.(p7)
explanation: A spell of a particular activity, type of weather, etc. is a period of time that is usually short, during which this activity, type of weather, etc. occurs
e.g. At that time there was a fright cold spell in Britain...
5.assail
The reader is someone with an attetion span of about 30 seconds-- a person assailed by many forces competing for attention.(p8)
explanation: Things that assail you arrive or happen in large numbers in an undesirable way.
e.g. All sorts of problems assailed us suddenly...
6.mystifying
...they obviously missed something, and they go back over the mystifying sentence, or over the whole paragraph, piecing it out like an ancient rune, making guesses and moving on.(p9)
explanation: Something that mystifies you amazes you because it is strange and impossible to explain or understand.
e.g. rituals are totally mystifying to visitors from other lands.
Thoughts
But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that's already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what-- these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in propotion to education and rank.
從小到大我們學(xué)寫作時餐曹，經(jīng)常被教育要用高級的詞匯液肌，復(fù)雜的句式來體現(xiàn)我們的水平胀葱，我們忘記了我們寫作是要給讀者看的劫流，怎樣讓讀者讀起來舒服才是最重要的好啰。我們經(jīng)常把一件簡單的事講得極其復(fù)雜浪秘，從而顯示我們水平的高超滞项，然而簡潔有力地表達自己想說的內(nèi)容也是一種本事君丁。
