If there were a semicolon instead of a period after free, an active and passive would have been used in the same sentence.
The use of “is still” differently in the two phrases.
I don’t think that’s a zeugma there, because the words “is still” is actually repeated separately in each phrase.
The “textbook example” is “He caught a fish and a cold”, where the verb “caught” has two objects: a fish and a cold. But catching a fish is a different action than catching a cold, so the verb caught, though used once, is used with two different meanings for each of its objects.
But if the sentence were “He caught a fish and he caught a cold”, I don’t think you could call that a zeugma. Likewise with the repeated use of “is still” in the MLK quote, I think.
I just had to post these remarks to brag that I know, or think I know, what a zeugma is.
and “is still” is a bit to simple to count anyhow.
I am not certain the word must be used only once, thought that is the most common case with verbs; prepositions are used with slightly different meanings … “tears **in **her eyes and holes in her jeans”
I agree with Senegoid. No way is that zeugma. In fact, the only reason I didn’t comment before is that I couldn’t figure out what part of the quote you considered to be zeugma, since obviously nothing about it was.
As for Strunk and White. I hope people realize that Strunk’s original was a guide for his freshman students at Cornell after seeing these mistakes in compositions for many years. It is not a guide for high-level literary writing. It is a basic user’s manual for people with minimal skills so they can write sentences that won’t cause other to vomit. People who attack Strunk and White give me a pain. If all the terrible writers online were to just follow their advice and nothing more, the literacy of the Internet would be increased a thousand-fold. If you know better about the language - then don’t be reading a beginner’s handbook. But especially don’t stop beginners from doing so.
BTW, Strunk’s original was written in 1918. That’s for all of you who think that the past was some educational eden we’ve fallen from.
Sorry I overreached because I was in a mood in which I thought ‘well, what you force people to learn it is how you think it should be’. But let me clean it up. What I am getting at is why should tenses get extra emphasis in English language instruction when the speakers of the language themselves talk in a way that you need to pay way more attention to other elements of their grammar. Like temporal adverbs often making verb tense irrelevant.
Not to say you can do without instruction about tense in English, just that there are a lot of other elements that should get extra attention instead. Let instruction about tense get the basics, then move on. That seems to match how much effort English speakers put into tense vs. other ways they use language.
If everyone were to follow Rule #17 alone, the world would be a better place.
Better instructions & fewer errors, less rudeness and cruelty; more reflection and silence
“Omit needless words.”
Yes–I’ve had harsh words for Strunk and White before on this message board, (perhaps too harsh, out of frustration), but not regarding this point here, which I basically agree with. IF truly developing writers–truly emerging writers–could read their book and just implement their suggestions, it would be tremendous, because how the book characterizes effective writing is basically correct. My complaint has been that–for such writers–it’s a really big IF. This is my realization after many years of working with developing writers, and after doing masters degree research centered around the cognitive processes that are engaged in the course of acquiring academic writing skills. The exhortative mode which embodies much (but not all) of the book rarely works with writers at this stage, from all that I have observed.
For example, in my experience, you can’t just say, “omit unnecessary words” and expect the truly developing writer to instantly realize which words are in fact unnecessary, because only someone who has already internalized the standards of “necessary,” (which are not universal or purely objective), can know what those are. I know this from having used Strunk and White and similar texts in the classroom. We–the instructors, or the experienced writers–think they see the world of written discourse as we do, as if it were a natural order, (and the authors actually use this term, natural order, to describe clauses). It isn’t. Our perception of “good” writing is the result of years of reading others, and having our writing read by others, and the interaction which comes with that, all of which is essentially a very long process of socialization. They don’t have that benefit, and in order for them to start seeing writing as we do requires a lot more than simply giving them a list of orders like, “Omit unnecessary words,” and expecting them to suddenly be able to follow them.
I do think Sturnk and White is really good for those who are already somewhat on their way along the road toward good writing–for those who have started to internalize the expectations to a certain degree, and who have a starting off point from which to see it, and–importantly–who want to see it. In short, for those who already “get it.” (You might say, “Well, isn’t that the typical college freshman, at places like Cornell?” Not necessarily. I don’t think we can assume that’s the case even at Cornell.) It also serves for someone like myself who gets lazy, or distracted, or who hurries though his writing all too often, and needs to be reminded of those things.
And, while the book has quite a few of these pat commands, (“avoid a succession of loose sentences,” etc.), which frustrate me as someone who works with developing writers, and which are only enigmas to them, I should say there are some parts of the book which don’t do this, and which, in fact, are more useful. For example, there is a discourse analysis of an essay by Lecky, (though, while helpful overall, it ironically begins with a horribly passive voice sentence, which I find strange.)
So, yes, definitely, it would be wonderful to increase the literacy of the internet to the standards of Strunk and White, but if I’ve leaned anything from my graduate studies and years of teaching writing, a reading of The Elements of Style isn’t enough to do the trick. I wish it were that easy.
Well, that kind of was my point, too.
I agree with everything you say and you say it better than I would.
Just popping by to say that this thread was a treat to read with several informative posts from people, especially the posts by guizot going into more detail about the methods and emphasis re:pedagogy.
And it was all inspired by Josh Duggar!
Well hey let’s all good. No problem.