Giving Away the Store, Part 3: Perverse Punctuation

Great writers don't follow rules. They don't look up in a style book how to use a comma. They invent their own rules. Some don't even care about the standard subject-verb-object order of English if they can create a dramatic effect, as in by the grace of God go I. Here's an example of an exceptional writer, whose name has often appeared in this blog, who defies conventional punctuation rules:

One sees that most human beings are wretched, and, in one way or another, become wicked: because they are so wretched. And one's turning away, then, for what I have called the welcome table is dictated by some mysterious vow one scarcely knows one's taken—never allow oneself to fall so low. – from James Baldwin,  No Name in the Street in Collected Essays (Library of America, p. 374)

Most writing teachers would suggest that a dash should replace the colon, and a colon should replace the dash. To which Baldwin would surely say, "I don't care what you suggest." Baldwin was a born rebel, a fierce social critic, an American treasure, a global original, and an extraordinary writer, among the many other reasons why his life and work have resurged nearly four decades after his work. He has been the subject of notable documentaries, biopics, biographies, and plays. (For my money, he has never receded into the shadows of world literature.)  

Back to my point. Writing by the textbook requires us to use colons for announcements and dashes for emphasis. Baldwin seems to apply those rules in reverse. But why fuss over rules when you want people to focus on your ideas, not your understanding of grammatical edicts? Be on the lookout for rule breakers in your reading of masterful writers.

Giving Away the Store, Part 2: Word Smarts

If I find a website that contains more than a half dozen answers to questions students have frequently asked me, I'd have no choice but to refer it. Word Smarts is such a site. 

Word Smarts offers an extensive list of grammar, diction, punctuation, and style tips. You will learn something about our spoken and written language, as well as find the reading entertaining, whether you are looking for the standard uses of an ellipsis, difference between fewest and least, purposes of the past participle, or origin of "how come." 

You can also subscribe to the site to receive periodic email updates.

Giving Away the Store, Part 1: The Value of Reading Aloud

A fellow writing consultant once told me, "Don't tell your clients everything you know because then they won't need you." I never accepted such wrongheaded advice. I decided she was insecure, limited, selfish, and ignorant. Any consulting business built on such a model cannot succeed. 

Since I have been in this business, I have tried to use my education and knowledge to bring people in, not to keep them out; to lift them up, not to put them down; to move them forward, not to hold them back. How could I embody my mantra without giving my all to whomever I could whenever I could and wherever I was? I believe that the more you give, the more you get. The past three decades have proven me right. I am still here doing my thing.

In this spirit of giving, I will give away the store. I will dedicate all of 2025 to promoting sources other than my own to help people cultivate their writing craft. I start with this simple yet powerful suggestion from "Reading Aloud" by Melissa Kirsch writing for the New York Times. As far as I remember, I understood the benefits of reading to children. But this article also underscores the delights and rewards of being read to. By listening to a reader, we practice concentration, listen to the rhythm of a language, and build a bond with our reader. With a skilled reader, we also learn the meaning and pronunciation, or additional meanings and pronunciations of words. We also get insights into punctuation, hearing the slight pauses of commas,  longer pauses of periods, dramatic emphasis of dashes and colons, and minor interruptions of parentheses. This article is less than a five-minute read with a terrific reference to Harvard Sentences. It's definitely a worthwhile read.

Twentieth Anniversary of WORDS ON THE LINE

I figured I would keep this blog alive for a year. Or two. Then five. Maybe ten. After 1,162 posts and 20 years of WORDS ON THE LINE, I'm still here. I have written most of these posts in half of the United States (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Washington, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Colorado, Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, California, and Hawaii), but I also wrote some of them in a dozen other countries too (Canada, Cuba, Iceland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Malta, Greece, India, China, and Australia). 

WORDS ON THE LINE has focused on writing at work, school, and home. In a sense, you can see this blog as a professional autobiography, as I have written about many of my activities, ideas, interests, and goals. The topics listed on the sidebar offers numerous tips on a wide range of writing-related topics, including book reviews, diction, grammar, and style. Searching a topic in the Search This Blog bar will reveal the depth of information I've collected over these past two decades. You can also write me at Phil@PhilVassallo.com if you have questions about writing.

A Way with Words, Part 10: Paul's Spiritual Imperative

At the risk of appearing as if I espouse a religious ideology—I am not—I conclude this 10-part series with a quote from Paul the Apostle in Romans 12:2 (New International Version, or NIV) because of its universal wisdom and truth. Two disclaimers before I start: (1) The NIV has taken great liberty in interpreting the King James Version, but then, so has the King James Version taken great liberties with the original ancient Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek manuscripts. (2) The first disclaimer not only leads to the second disclaimer but nullifies my need for even having made the first disclaimer. It is that I look at this biblical quote purely from rhetorical and philosophical perspectives, not sectarian and doctrinal ones. 

Here is the verse in part:

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

From a rhetorical vantage point, notice three strategies behind this beautiful, powerful sentence:

1. The shift from active voice (Do not conform), to passive voice (be transformed). So much for keeping voice consistent within a sentence. In fact, passive and active often work together splendidly. Examples include "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done," "She works hard and should be promoted," and "He was pardoned after the court determined the evidence was inadmissible."
2. The use of a command instead of a declaration ("We must conform"), suggestion ("You should conform"), question ("Can you conform?"), or exclamation ("Conform, brothers and sisters, conform!"). These techniques appear elsewhere in the Bible,  but not in this critical demand Paul makes of the Roman readers of this letter. He chooses the simplest way of issuing this order.
3. The choice of the word renewing, which the King James Version also uses. Paul could have written changing, correcting, modifying, revising, or the repetitive transforming. But these other words seem too prescriptive or transitory. Renewing suggests rebirth, which is a central tenet of Christianity. 

From a philosophical position, Paul's statement comes as close to a categorical imperative as one can get. If we are to continue evolving as wise human beings and involving as useful human beings, then we must adapt to our environment, our companions, our circumstances, and our experiences. Life may bring to us an unexpected fate. Our plans may go awry. These misfortunes, however, do not determine how we should respond to them, regardless of how society believes we should respond. Romans 12:2 makes this proposition abundantly clear, affirming our potential to be our own master.  

Here's a 2025 of active reading, writing, and renewal!

A Way with Words, Part 9: James Baldwin's Peculiar Reciprocity

I refer to James Baldwin for at least the fourteenth time on WORDS ON THE LINE, primarily because of the eminently quotable nature of his writing. Here is one paradoxical sentence from a letter he wrote to his agent, Robert P. Mills, dated November 20, 1961, from Turkey:

If you don't learn how to take, you soon forget how to give.

By way of background, Baldwin was explaining to Mills how grateful, and maybe undeserving, he was to have received such generosity from his hosts in Turkey. He mentioned that he had no idea how to repay such kindness, resolving that some people do not want payment, that their payment is the gift of giving.

Over time, I have learned the truth of that statement. My parents raised me as many others have been raised, to never expect or accept other people's giving without earning it. Consequently, the very thought of receiving a "handout" abhorred me. As I grew under the influence of intellectual giants like and old boss Harry Kamish, musical geniuses like Bill Evans, transformative artists like Chuck Close, extraordinary writers like Baldwin, and mostly habitual givers like my sister Elizabeth and wife Georgia, I experienced a reversal in perspective. I now understand that giving and taking in their intended spirit are virtually synonymous. I do not feel the need to explain what Baldwin meant. You would understand if you have experienced the meaning of benevolence.

A Way with Words, Part 8: Robert Frost's Surface Tension

I have returned to the poem "Birches" by Robert Frost at various stages of my life since I first discovered it in college more than fifty years ago, and each time its meaning and value deepen for me. As a college student, I was struck by the image of birches bending either by the weight of a boy swinging on them (unlikely, says Frost) or the more possible severe consequences of ice storms. A decade later, as a father, I was taken by the choice of escaping the troubled world by climbing a birch tree to its highest weight-sustaining point or returning to earth, the only place where one can find love. As my wife and I became  empty nesters, I found heartrending the concluding picture Frost paints of spending one's final moments climbing a birch toward heaven. Later, when I saw one of my grandsons atop a tree on my property, I recalled the moment in the poem when Frost considers country boys apart from companionship, which  they would be able to find in the city, entertaining themselves by creating their own games, such as climbing a birch.      

But one moment in the poem has never lost its vividness and significance throughout my adult life. Recollecting a boy climbing a birch, Frost writes:

                ... He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

The comparison Frost draws is what a scientist would call surface tension, that apparently gravity-defying position that liquid can hold slightly above their container before spilling over. We have all tried that stunt, marveling at how water refuses to drip down our glass even though it exceeds its barrier. Admittedly, I still do so as a challenge on mornings when pouring orange juice into a four-ounce glass. Returning to the lonely boy painstakingly ascending the birch, I delight in the realization that Frost breaks the common belief of youth's reckless abandon. Sure, we can see climbing a tree as reckless, but the boy does so with utmost caution and precision, inclinations we usually do not attribute to children. Even above the brim. I never tire of that moment in "Birches."