Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Gertrude Stein's How To Write: Saving the Sentence


From Saving the Sentence;

1) Find 5 well-formed sentences
  1. We will be welcome
  2. A sentence is a part of a speech
  3. That is a speech.
  4. Anybody will listen.
  5. A blue sky can reflect in a lake.

2) Find 5 sentences which can be saved with punctuation
  1. What is romantic?
  2. Francine, which is a name of a young woman who has changed very much in five years, hoped to be married.
  3. Will it be soon?
  4. Oh, well, who can be better?
  5. What is the difference between sentiment and romance?
3) Find 5 sentences which can be saved with a word or phrase.
  1. Painting, now, after its great moment as a major artform, must come back in style to be a minor art.
  2. A house should be put upon a hill.
  3. A speech should have a point.
  4. She was certain to be left when he went away with them.
  5. Speeches are created in answer to the world's questions.
4) Argue that 3 sentences cannot be saved.
  1. The scene changes it is a stone high up against with a hill and there is and above where they will have time.
  2. Across which it is placed upon different hills.
  3. It makes it do that they do cry when in an assistance.
 The first sentence cannot be saved as one sentence because there is no clarity about which subject and verb go together (or if anyone of them do) and there is no way to determine what it was supposed to mean.
The second sentence contains the pronoun 'it' but has no clarity as to what this pronoun refers. There is no way to determine what the sentence is attempting to say in order to correct it.
The second sentence contains the do construction with two separate 'it' pronouns -- each clearly referring to different things but neither with any claeity as to what things. Also, there is no way to be "in an assistance" because assistance is an action and not something in which to get INSIDE...




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