Maureen Dowd's 10/21 Column on Obama
Working on legislation can be so tedious, compared with a 13-city book tour in which you are feted as the liberal hunk of the 21st century, generating buzz about your future instead of the country’s.
The commas after "tedious" and "century" cut off restrictive participial phrases. The first modifies the gerund subject "working...tedious"; the second modifies "hunk." Passive verb "are feted" diminishes élan. Try this: "...compared to a 13-city book tour during which political scavengers fete you as the liberal hunk...." Ditch the intensifier "so" in your first sentence. Abandon it forever.
Please don't resort to tabloid diction to describe Mr. Obama. The fellow is not a vulgar "hunk." Note how he moves. His hip bones articulate differently than those of earth-bound hunks Cloony-Pitt-Cruise. Obama moves with the grace of an Astaire or Nureyev. Note how he sails onto a platform in a Terpsichore arc of the Swan-Lake Prince. Compare that to John Kerry's Frankenstein-monster lurch or George Bush's Elmer-Gantry-huckster shoulder hunch and jerky stride. Discover new metaphors, Ms. Dowd. Don't write template about the Obama magic.
Mr. Obama, who fears being seen as fluffy and who has been known to mock pretty boys in his party, never seems to take off his makeup these days, as he pads from one soft perch to the next, from Oprah to Meredith to Larry.
The comma after "days" cuts off a trailing restrictive adverbial clause. "Has been known" is a passive cliché. "Fluffy," Ms. Dowd, "fluffy?" That's infelicitous word choice. "Trivializing glamour" may be what you mean. "Obama fends off trivializing glamour by mocking other beauties in his party."
After 16 years of polarizing presidents driving them crazy, Americans will be yearning for someone as soothing as Obama. (“No one is exempt,” he writes in one of many platitudes in his new book, “from the call to find common ground.”) He is so hot now that tickets to his political events are being sought, at scalpers’ prices, on Craig’s List.
Simple present-tense verbs beat present-progressive tense in decisiveness; instead of "will be yearning," try "yearn." This is the thousandth time I have pled with you to use the possessive before a gerund: "presidents' driving..." You persevere in this error to be perverse. You learned this technique under the fascism of the sisters who taught you English.
He has been told by Democratic leaders to think about whether he really wants to be president, or whether he’s just getting swept away by people who want him to do it.
For God's sake, cut the Valley-Girl adverb "really." The nuns taught you Strunk & White's aversion for redundant modifiers. Use active voice: "Democratic leaders tell him to think about whether he wants to be president or whether people who want him to do it will sweep him away." The comma in your sentence after "president" separates compound dependent clauses. Separate independent clauses with a comma, not dependent clauses. Dependent clauses act like nouns, adjectives or adverbs.
You are better at the psychology of power than you are at punctuation. Explore why you think Obama hesitates to choose the top of the power pile. Twin Black star Colin Powell suffers identical affliction. Why did Powell buckle and deliver Bush intelligence lies to the UN to seal the war? In a paler example, why did Obama bow to McCain recently and not challenge him in a Totem-and-Taboo tiff of the new god to knock out the old?
And most interesting, discuss why both Obama's and Powell's wives oppose their men's running for president. Is this opposition based on fear of losing their husbands to an assassin's bullet or to losing him to the corrupting power of perquisites of the office of president?
Psychology constitutes your strength, Ms. Dowd. Lean on that potent skill. And get some smart cookie who understands an English sentence to edit your stuff for galloping comma overuse. Fight your tendency to use tabloid diction to sound au courant. You have read enough good stuff to have a richer vocabulary at your beck, and you are long enough now in the tooth to claim your right to use standard diction of the choicest sort. Have the class to become an eminence grise.
lee drury de cesare
Madeira beach, fl
http://www.grammargrinch.blogspot.com
posted by twinkobie at
10:45 AM
3 Comments:
>Is this opposition based on fear of losing their husbands to an assassin's bullet or to losing him to the corrupting power of perquisites of the office of president?<
Hmm … “their husbands” – plural; “losing him” – singular. How sloppy.
>This is the thousandth time I have pled [sic] with you to use the possessive before a gerund: "presidents' driving..." You persevere in this error to be perverse. You learned this technique under the fascism of the sisters who taught you English.<
Pled? How phonetic!
From Strunk & White (you’ve red that book, right?):
Gerunds usually require the possessive case.
Mother objected to our driving on the icy roads.
A present participle verbal, on the other hand, takes the objective case.
They heard him singing in the shower.
The difference between a verbal participle and a gerund is not always obvious, but note what is really said in each of the following.
Do you mind me asking a question?
Do you mind my asking a question?
In the first sentence, the queried objection is to “me”, as opposed to other members of the group, asking a question. In the second example, the issue is whether a question may be asked at all.
You pour your vitriol on anyone who writes “me asking”; maybe Strunk & White isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Sorry – that was passive, wasn’t it?
Maybe Strunk & White isn’t all that retired English teachers crack it up to be.
This person must be one of those snooty English people: either that, or he/she has put the comma outside the quotation marks incorrectly.
Then there is the sneering at the sainted Strunk & White, both lying majesterially in their graves. If this grammar snot shoots at Strunk & White, we have a right to ask him to quote Curme and Jespherson to back up his condescension.
But maybe he scorns Curme and Jesperson too.
What about God? Does God do grammar? lee
If you're going to start off with he/she, keep it consistent throughout, Lee. Most style guides will tell you that.
You're digging your hole deeper. I'm not sneering at Strunk & White, and you know it. I applaud the fact that they can tell a present participle verbal from a gerund and not stick a possessive in front of everything they see with an "ing" on the end of it, as you do.
You've stopped writing in second person, too. Normally you direct your remarks at those you scorn. Aren't you talking to me any more? I feel special. And what's with the "we"? Who else is there with you?
>This person must be one of those snooty English people: either that, or he/she has put the comma outside the quotation marks incorrectly.<
Your comma splits a correlative construction, Lee. I know you're teasing! You're wrong on both assumptions, too.
>majesterially<
I'll wager that more sources will accept my comma inside quotation marks than will accept your spelling of "magisterially". Do you want to cover that bet?
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