Stealing Thunder

In this universe, there actually exist people who love details and enjoy citing references. I am not one of them but do see the absolute necessity of saying where information or a quotation originates when it is not something of my own.

The question for writers who use another’s material, ideas, words, etc., is when is it necessary to cite the original author. The answer to that question is that if the information used in an essay is paraphrased, summarized or quoted, a citation is in order.

While it may be difficult to imagine owning an idea, the fact remains that intellectual property involves ownership.  To remain honest, a writer has to credit his sources; otherwise, he may be deemed a plagiarist.

Below is a paragraph from an original source and works cited entry, followed by examples of summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting.

Original source material:

John Dennis, English critic and playwright, invented a new way of simulating the sound of thunder on stage and used the method in one of his plays, Appius and Virginia. Dennis "made" thunder by using "troughs of wood with stops in them" instead of the large mustard bowls usually employed. The thunder was a great success, but Dennis's play was a dismal failure. The manager at Drury Lane, where the play was performed, canceled its run after only a few performances. A short time later, Dennis returned to Drury Lane to see Shakespeare's Macbeth. As he sat in the pit, he was horrified to discover that his method of making thunder was being used. Jumping to his feet, Dennis screamed at the audience, "That's my thunder, by God! The villains will not play my play but they steal my thunder."

“Origins of Sayings-Steal My Thunder.” Trivia-Library.com. 2004. Web. 30 October 2012.

 Summary:

According to the web site Trivia-Library.com, the phrase “Steal my thunder” originated in 1709 when John Dennis’ play Appius and Virginia failed, but his technique for making the sound of thunder was used in a more successful theatrical enterprise, Shakespeare’s Macbeth (“Origins”).

Paraphrase:

Dennis was in the audience when Macbeth was performed and was shocked to hear his own invention used as a sound effect in the play (“Origins”).

Direct quote (quote within a quote):

Dennis allegedly “…screamed at the audience, ‘That’s my thunder….The villains will not play my play but they steal my thunder’” (qtd. in “Origins”).  

The Internet has much information on the ins and outs of citing sources, both for in-text (parenthetical) citations and the works cited pages most instructors require. The SWC also provides handouts on the subject.

The main idea to remember is that writers actually do own their words. When we repeat what they have said to illustrate, make a point,  or support an idea in an essay, it is up to us to make sure our readers know that we have used someone else’s ideas or words by citing the original author. No one should have his thunder taken from him, not without giving him full credit for the booming sounds.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!

Connections, Conjunctions, and Commas

Conjunctions connect. The two-word sentence that begins this short paragraph and this blog should help you remember the purpose of conjunctions. You can use conjunctions to connect words, phrases, or clauses.  In some instances, you’ll need commas along with conjunctions, not always though.

If a sentence has double subjects, double verbs, or double adjectives, etc., commas are not required, as you can see in the next sentence:

“The dude and dudette (double subject) smiled and talked (double verb) about the grand and glorious (double adjective) waves.”

There is no reason to put commas between the doubles since the conjunctions alone tell us they are connected.

If I had written the example sentence with more than two of each (subjects, verbs, and adjectives), I would also use commas to connect the words in each list along with a conjunction to indicate where the list ends, right before the final word.

A few grammarians disagree, saying we don’t need a comma before the last word in a list, but most say we do need the comma for clarity. With several subjects, verbs, and adjectives, the sentence reads as follows:

“The dude, dudette, and their friend smiled, talked, and laughed about the grand, glorious, and perfect waves.”

Conjunctions also connect phrases. For instance, the conjunction but  connects two adverb phrases that signify time in the following sentence:

“Before going to the beach but after realizing he’d forgotten his board, the novice surfer decided to head home to start the day completely over.”  

Again, I do not need a comma to separate the two adverb phrases. The one comma in the sentence indicates a long introductory phrase (“Before going to the beach”), another use of commas entirely, another blog perhaps.

When conjunctions connect two simple sentences, AKA independent clauses, to form compound sentences, commas have to be added. Each simple sentence could stand alone, totally independent, not needing other parts of speech as support; but using a conjunction to join the two defines the sentence as compound, like this one:

“The surfer who had forgotten his board felt embarrassed, and he looked nervously at the dude and dudette as they went on and on about the grand and glorious waves.”

A comma before the conjunction is essential to connect – and separate – the two independent clauses. If you don’t use a conjunction between two simple sentences, you’ll wind up with a comma splice, an entirely avoidable mistake.

In addition, each of the conjunctions {FANBOY (for, and, nor, but, etc.)  } has a meaning of its own. If a writer chooses the wrong conjunction, logic and meaning may suffer.

If I write that the surfer headed to the beach but planned to surf, the sentence does not make perfect sense; however, the sentence does make sense if I write that the surfer headed to the beach and planned to surf.

I bet the next time he decides to surf, he’ll put his board in the wagon before leaving and then enjoy the grand and glorious waves, just like the dude and dudette.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!

Like Magic

Punctuation used correctly almost disappears from the page because the reader just doesn’t notice it.  Incorrect punctuation, however, can jump off the page as if the font is ten times bigger than the rest of the text, especially when a professor reads the composition.

It is even possible that students have difficulty learning how to use punctuation correctly due to its disappearing act in professional writing, virtually disappearing anyway. Punctuation should be unobtrusive, though. Writers want their readers to notice what they say, not how they’ve used commas, etc.  Few book reviews, if any at all, mention how neatly and nicely an author placed question marks or semicolons.

One way to get past the tendency to slide right over punctuation when reading is to stop now and then and really look at the punctuation marks a professional writer has used. Seeing correct examples, truly seeing them, will enable you to recall how someone else punctuated sentences when you are writing your own.

It is sort of like looking inside the magician’s hat to find out where the rabbit is hidden. Noticing why a passage reads well, something to do with the practically invisible punctuation, can serve by example when it comes time for you to write. You may not get extra credit in class for perfect punctuation, but you won’t find deductions from your grade either.

It’s more productive, and maybe even more instructive, to notice how an expert rides a wave than to critique the dude who wipes out all the time. If we can see how something is done correctly, we’ll be less likely to make mistakes ourselves.

To appear effortless, like a magician who pulls a rabbit from his hat or a surfer soaring over the gulf water on the crest of a wave, takes preliminary work. Knowledge and skill come before the flawless execution of the magic act or the Ride. 

I wonder if there’s a surfing magician who can manage to produce a seagull from thin air while . . . , or maybe that would be way too much expertise in one place and one time.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!

It's Alive! It's Alive!

Long, long ago, or maybe not that long, if you heard something was going viral, you’d head away from whatever it was as fast and as far as you could flee. Now you’re likely to check YouTube to see for yourself what the big deal is.

Words change as we use them, dropping one meaning and picking up another. Languages, like living organisms, adjust to their environments.

A word may be like a jellyfish with long separate tentacles reaching out from the body’s center (in English, often a Latin or Greek root). In order not to be stung by choosing a word that doesn’t quite mean what you intend, it’s a good idea to check before using the latest version of a word.

How is it that words change? Often, words put on new tentacles simply because people use them to mean other than what they once meant. For instance, the word awesome has fallen by the wayside a bit. It used to mean inspiring awe, a very powerful emotion. Lately, it is used synonymously with neat, cool, very good, something much milder than the earlier meaning. 

In the case of another word,  -bad - a reversal occurred some time ago, which led to people using the word bad to mean good. I don’t know bad’s dictionary status at the moment, but I bet good and bad are not yet synonymous in the official list of words and meanings.  In time, the status of bad meaning good may change, but by that time the slang will probably have gone out of style.

It does happen now and then that a new word or phrasing or usage becomes part of the official lexicon. When a person or group coins a word and the word goes viral among the population, the newly minted word (or different definition) can find a home in the dictionary, at least until it changes to some other form entirely. I just checked, and bad is still “rotten, harmful,  incorrect, wicked, unpleasant,” etc.,  until definition number 17, at which time it is defined as “extremely good” (Encarta Dictionary).

In a living language, one awesome aspect has to be the liveliness of our speech, the way our words change with us over time.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!

What You Say

Some say that the real purpose of writing is to communicate and that the form the communication takes is secondary to the message, the content. There is no doubt that people who value the message over the form of the message make a valid point; and I am certain that no one should stop writing just because subject/verb agreement is a mystery or comma rules seem silly.

However, the reality is that a writer who wishes to have his message heard has to pay attention to commonly accepted rules of grammar. To have others listen and take the message seriously, the writer does need to use language that aligns with accepted practice.

What happens if a writer plans to tell a story about people who do not value traditional grammar standards? What is the right approach if the people the writer chooses to depict do not speak in compliance with the rules and regulations dictated by grammarians over the centuries? Rest assured, there is a way to handle non-standard grammar in a grammatically correct manner.

For an example, let’s consider two hypothetical authors who write about peer group communication among dedicated surfers.

Mr. Impeccable, the first writer, has a style that is formal, erudite, and leaned. He pays obsessive attention to perfect grammar, too. Without using non-standard grammar, not even in examples of surfer dialogue, he fails to depict realistically a group of surfers who communicate in slang, Dude, for the most part.

On the other hand, Ms. Free Writer, the second writer, is easy going, relaxed, and informal. She is not concerned with absolute purity when it comes to grammar. She includes an absolute ton of surfer slang in her composition, showing how the surfers communicate with each other in a true-to-life way.  If she doesn’t watch out for ungrammatical constructions, though, her essay might become unreadable because what she has to say heads totally out to sea, her meaning adrift in an ocean of errors.

Either writer can do a good job with the topic of surfers’ slang by merging standard and non-standard English. When they quote surfers, they should go for the surfers’ distinct style of speech; and when they talk about how surfer slang developed or continue a story, they should stick to Standard English.

Many writers do include dialects, slang, particular ways of talking in their writing; and the most successful ones do so without being grammar snobs at all. They achieve a balance between getting the message across in easily understood Standard English and using other modes of speech as a way to bring their characters to life.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!