Status Updates From How to Write a Sentence: An...

This was chapters ago, but props to Mr. Fish for getting me to remotely respect A Tale of a Tub, even if just a little

I am having the time of my life

This book is a love letter to sentences. I am utterly confused and dumbfounded, as well as completely enamored. I want to see sentences this way.

Just wait cause in 2025 I will write so many sentences

This guy knows how to write sentences 💯

Starting this years reading journey

Rereading this thoughtful contemplation of what makes "good" writing as I get ready to grade 184 final semester papers from my University students.

DNF.
I'm sure this book has many wonderful lessons, but it is crafted in a highly inaccessible manner. Exercises are thrown randomly into the middle of a paragraph rather than separated with headers. Lengthy example sentences explained, not diagramed or sectioned in a way that would aid learners, but, again, in lengthy paragraphs. There is no way to visually see the structure or "form" of a sentence.

A sentence is “a structure of logical relationships” which “organizes items in the world” (16). Fish suggests that sentences conform to forms of logic (which relate actor, actions, and objects) and rhetoric (which relate different propositions to each other to construct arguments) (29)

There are many ways a last sentence can be effective

Interesting examples of first sentences

Sentence form ultimately exists as a vehicle for content.

The subordinating style - examples from MLK, Shakespeare and John Milton

Figure out what you want to do and figure out how to do it.

Karate kid method - practice the forms and you’ll be able to make infinite sentences

This is a very dense book, besides being a short one.

Listen, I'm tired, okay? Who asked? I did. I'm writing this. Like, come on, get a grip stupid. Ha! I can make you say anything. Watch, and also listen to yourself as you read: "I'm a big ol' dumdum." Pffft, I just shit myself laughing! I can't believe you'd say that! Anyway, grammarly says my text reads as inspirational, joyful, and informal. Clearly I am learn a lot. So I hope you enjoyed reading my essay.

Bye.

Why toil away in light of critics when it is within thought's simple grasp? Take the beam into both eyes until sunspots are the full view of corneas, wilting; balls brought to boil (add salt to taste) and left until dry; here beginning the burning up, like the crazy firebird, of the whole balls made gone. Now fly like a phoenix in the land of delusion! Ca-caw! Freedom is only, then, bolstered by the mattressed walls.

Why toil away in light of critics when it is within thought's simple grasp? Take the beam into both eyes until sunspots are the full view of corneas, wilting; balls brought to boil (add salt to taste) and left until dry; here beginning the burning up, like the phoenix, of the whole balls made gone. Now fly like a crazy firebird in the land of delusion! Ca-caw! Freedom is only, then, bolstered by the mattressed walls.

Why toil away in light of critics when it is within thought's simple grasp? Take the beam into both eyes until sunspots are the full view of corneas, wilting; balls brought to boil (add salt to taste) and left until dry; here beginning the burning up, like the crazy firebird, of the whole balls made gone. Now fly like a phoenix in the land of delusion! Ca-caw! Freedom is only, then, bolstered by the mattressed walls.

Why toil away in light of critics when it is within thought's simple grasp? Take the beam into both eyes until sunspots are the full view of corneas, wilting; balls brought to boil (add salt to taste) and left until dry; here beginning the burning up, like the crazy firebird, of the whole balls made gone. Now fly like a pheonix in the land of delusion! Ca-caw! Freedom is only, then, bolstered by the mattressed walls.

Why toil away in light of critics when it is within thought's simple grasp? Take the beam into both eyes until sunspots are the full view of corneas, wilting; balls brought to boil (add salt to taste) and left until dry; here beginning the burning up, like the crazy firebird, of the whole balls made gone. Now fly like a pheonix in the land of delusion! Ca-caw! Freedom is only, then, bolstered by the mattressed walls,

There has been a reference to Karate Kid (pg. 33), and some refreshing examples of sentences and forms.

"You can't do anything with "furiously sleep ideas green colorless" not because it is without meaning, but because it is without form" (27).

It should read (as from Noam Chomsky) "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" and while that is nonsensical--we understand that it works! Keep reading!

It is often said that the job of language is to report ... reality, but the power of language is greater and more dangerous...; it shapes reality ... in the sense that the order imposed on a piece of the world by a sentence is only one among innumerable possible orders.37 In short, pick your effect, figure out what you want to do, and then figure out to do it. 44

Why Sentences 1-11

Quote:
...the practice of analyzing and imitating sentences is also the practice of learning how to read them with an informed appreciation. Here’s the formula: Sentence craft equals sentence comprehension equals sentence appreciation.

24 pages read in 23 min, via @leioapp (http://leio.co).

14 pages read in 27 min, via @leioapp (http://leio.co).

This book was, ironically, not very well written.

Can I just say that the writing exercises in this book are some of the most fun I’ve ever done?