God Bless You Stephen Fry · 8:08am Sep 27th, 2013
In my never ending quest to battle the grammarians, I have discovered a wonderful gem from a few years ago. I think this more or less sums up everything that I've ever wanted to say about the subject. I can now rest easy.
A few parting excerpts from Foundations of English Style by Paul Fulcher: "There is no hocus-pocus about style. If a man have something to say, a desire to say it, and a decent equipment in the mechanics of his language, his style will never be really bad. It may not be good. It may be as ordinary as the boiled potatoes that in my childhood were always associated with wash day... It may, in Miss Millay's words, be as domestic as a plate. But it will not be bad. The secret of a really bad style—should anyone care to know it—is to dress up one's lack of ideas and perceptions and emotions in false trappings, and to worship form as something distinct from substance." (p190)
"'Fine writing' is the greatest betrayer of pretentiousness in style. With its tawdry figures of speech, its supposedly elegant circumlocutions, its pseudo-poetic diction, its concern with manner rather than substance. It is the pink lemonade in the circus of false style—artificially colored, flat, thirst-provoking rather than thirst-satisfying. Its home is in the village newspaper of yesterday, with flowery obituaries, the accounts of pleasant birthday parties, when the festal board groaned under the weight of luscious viands, in the chronicles of grammar school commencements, of Fourth of July orations, of weddings at which the groom, tastefully attired in blue serge, led the blushing bride, garbed in maidenly modesty and the choicest handiwork of Mlle. Leota's Parisienne Shoppe, to the hymeneal altar, decked in nature's garlands furnished by the Hook Floral Company, where the servants of the Lord waited to pronounce the solemn words that were to join them forever on their voyage together down the river of time on the bark of holy matrimony into the safe harbor of wedded bliss. That is 'fine writing.'" (p202)
Good night, and good luck.
Downloaded the video and converted it to MP3. I'm am going to play this while I sleep so I could dream of Stephen Fry. If wisdom and intelligence had an accent, it would sound like him.