The Elegant Variation: NO GRAMMARIANS WE ...

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July 16, 2004

NO GRAMMARIANS WE ...

... but we're reasonably certain "oozing" is a verb. (Blurb courtesy Publishers Lunch)

Verbless in Paris Also from France, the WSJ shines a light on a new novel from Michel Dansel, THE TRAIN TO NOWHERE, notable for presenting 233 pages without a single verb. "A typical passage: 'In that carriage, between the grumpy woman oozing vulgarity and the similarly asinine creature with her, the progenitor and her eczematous brat, the purple-faced fatso, the half-bald guy like a vegetarian may-bug, the verbose matinee idol and the crazy witch, no room for me.'"

And to all you lovely well-wishers out there (and you know who you are), you warm this blogger's cold, black heart.

Posted at 02:04 PM | Permalink

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Reading, wondering, thinking...

Posted by: Mary | July 16, 2004 at 04:27 PM

Oozing by itself is definately a verb... but in this case, I suppose one could argue that its use here is as part of a present participle phrase, seeing as how it's part of a clause intended to describe the grumpy woman. Even though such phrases contain verbs, they are treated as though they are adjectives, because they're used to describe another noun. Of course, in a normal sentence this would be more clear, since there'd be another verb in there.

Then again, I'm no grammar expert. I probably would have chickened out and used "vulgarity-oozing", since you could make a better case for that being an adjective.

Posted by: rasputin | July 17, 2004 at 04:24 AM

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The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

July 16, 2004

NO GRAMMARIANS WE ...

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

July 16, 2004

NO GRAMMARIANS WE ...

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism