2024, books, education, Mysteries, Uncategorized, Words

Rules of Engagement

42 Comments

When I was in junior high I never did really figure out how to diagram a sentence.  In my mind’s eye I can still see the examples that the teacher had written up on the board but I’m pretty sure if it were ever on a test, I probably missed that question.  I think my grasp of the English language is sufficient without that bit of knowledge.  Although I couldn’t point out a dangling participle to safe my life, I do recognize the subjunctive.  In fact, I remember how excited I was that the first paragraph of Uprooted by Naomi Novik not only mentioned dragons but also used the subjunctive correctly.  Twice!

Correcting someone else’s English use isn’t a habit of mine; since I can’t claim perfect usage, I stop short of deciding if anyone else does.  In fact, I’m re-thinking the idea that anyone has perfect usage.  Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue (which I just finished) has pretty well convinced me that most of the “rules’ that we think know were just made up (fairly willy-nilly) by folks whose only qualification was their strong opinion!

Imagine my surprise when I found that someone else obviously had a strong opinion about grammar.  I turned the page on a book yesterday to find the above edit.  In red pen in a library book no less.  I can’t imagine that anyone would care enough to do this. It’s clear what the author meant – I’m sure every single person reading this book knew exactly what she was saying.  Makes me think of a t-shirt I’ve seen online recently that made me laugh:

I doubt seriously if this “correction” will give other readers an “ah ha” moment.  No one will look at those red letters and say “Oh, I’ve been using that and because wrong all these years”.  So I’ve decided that I don’t care if the way the sentence is written is wrong by anybody’s standards.  I DO think it’s a heinous crime to write in a library book in red ink.  `Nuff said.

Do you write in your own books?  Margins or editing?

42 thoughts on “Rules of Engagement”

  2. Never. It ruins a book for me. I find it difficult to read a book with underlined passages as well and if the underlines are in pencil I will erase them all in advance.

    I guess I consider books to be visitors rather than possessions, visitors that will have a life beyond my own and so writing in them would be a form of vandalism.

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  3. I add comments from first readers to works in progress, but those are easily removed when I complete editing.

    Grammar does not seem to be a problem for me, although I frequently vacillate on the usage of single quotation marks. I’m going to have to look that up someday.

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    1. Question. When does it become a book? My first thought was that if it’s in progress it’s not. But if it’s in the hands of first readers, maybe it is??

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      1. We’re talking early drafts. Alpha readers. Spot the good stuff, crush the dreck. It’s really helpful.

        This WIP is down to 91,000 words after hitting 118,000. 1 1/2 years in the making. Haven’t written the conclusion, although I did write the epilog, so I kind of know where I’m going.

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  4. The only books I ever wrote in were college textbooks that I bought used and already had note and highlighter marks in them.

    Otherwise, I don’t mark up books. I don’t feel as strongly about it as Bill does, but any marks in a book distracts from the experience and takes me out of the story.

    OOPS! Almost forgot. I write in cookbooks all the time after I’ve tried a recipe. I’ll make notes about cooking time, whether we liked the dish or not, and changes I made in ingredients and/or amounts to suit my taste. We also mark down when we ate that dish (if it’s “special”, who ate with us if we had guests, and if the guests enjoyed the dish too.

    So in that respect, it’s a bit of a family/friends eating history/diary. Marking up cookbooks doesn’t bother me at all. I see them more as “working books” if that makes sense.

    Chris in Owatonna

    **BSP**Riverwalk Market Fair in Bridge Square, downtown Northfield, this Saturday from 9-1. Barring extra rain, the mighty Cannon River should have receded from flood stage so it’ll be safe to be downtown. Besides me selling my books and other vendors providing good deals on their wares, there are several fruit and produce vendors who participate and should have some terrific late spring produce ready to eat for customers. BUY LOCAL! **END BSP*

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    1. Bridge Square is very close to the river, and the river is still very high, but it has been safe to be in Bridge Square throughout the flooding. People have been there watching the power of the river all week. Across Water Street from Bridge Square at the Carlson offices people have been sandbagging and pumping water out of the lower level of the building. The river has dropped back from its crest and the flood warnings will be gone effective Friday night, unless we get a lot more rain. I think it will be safe to be in Bridge Square on Saturday.

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  5. Yes, the red ink is just arrogance! That said, I did come upon an error in a book recently that I circled lightly in pencil, and then felt guilty and went back to erase. I may circle words to look up, etc., if I don’t have paper handy, but I erase later.

    I think the only books I underlined were textbooks in college. Like Bill, I erase penciled underlining before I read if possible. Drives me nuts to have someone else’s thoughts on the page.

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  7. I have some books given to me by a dear friend who was a philosophy professor. They are books he had as an undergraduate. He wrote in the margins and underlined as well. I believe it is in a Dostoevsky novel he wrote the times of the evening he was reading. He really read slowly, given the times he wrote in the margins.

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  8. I write and underline in the books that are teaching me such as (currently) my Spanish language books.

    Now look at this, punctuation/grammar/spelling, police. In my sentence above, should I have put “currently” within commas or those other thingys?

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  10. I attended a pen pals ditty where the author invited could discuss anything but their current book. Wendy wasserman chose to discuss writing in margins and dog ears that some people use regularly . She discussed her uncle who was a marginalia guy. Interesting discussion

    I don’t feel strongly. It has helped me focus. My favorite offense was the guy who read paperback books and tore off the pages as he finished a sitting. I saw him leave 1/2 was in an airplane seat pocket

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    2. Well, technically that’s been me in my past. When I worked for the bookstore, one of the perks was being able to take any stripped copies of mass market paperbacks. In the book industry, you ripped the covers off and sent them back to the publisher for credit because it was (according to the publishers) cheaper to print a new mass market than it was to pay for the postage to get it back. So I am guilty of having ripped the pages off of every strip I ever plowed my way through. That includes War and Peace. I kept it in the reading basket in the bathroom and reading it only on bathroom trips took me about a year. But it got smaller and smaller as the year went by! Sorry if I’ve told that story before.

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  11. As far as I’m concerned, folding down corners, writing in and underlining in books borrowed from a library or a friend, is unacceptable, but what you do with your own books is none of my business. I say that as someone who buys a lot of used books. It really doesn’t bother me if someone has underlined something or scribbled a note in the margin. As a matter of fact, it is sometimes helpful and alerts me to details I might otherwise have missed.

    When I was an undergraduate, most of our textbooks were rented from the university. It was a rare textbook that didn’t have lots of yellow highlights, underlining, and notes. I never mastered the art of note taking, so I found it helpful to see what other students had underscored and highlighted.

    I rarely underline or write in books that I read for pleasure. As an English major, however, I found it helpful to underline specific words or passages germane to class discussions of our individual interpretation of a work. Most of the novels that were required reading were not available through the school’s lending program, but could usually be purchased used, cheaply, from students who had previously taken the class. Depending on the class, the required reading may or may not be books you’d want to own.

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  13. Rise and Shine, Baboons, from JacAnon;

    It seems that in every area of life there is some Petty Tyrant who wants to Do.It.The.Right.Way and tell everyone else what the rules are. Even regarding library books. I was at the dog park with Bootsy a few years ago, chatting with another human, when a woman barged in, got in my face and told me to “Get over there and pick up after your dog! NOW!” Truth be told, Bootsy had not done anything to pick up. I will bet that lady has few friends. I actually pick up the stray stuff there because we can all miss one now and then.

    I only write (and spill on) my own cookbooks. I rarely buy books anymore. I go to the library or get ebooks. I have the ebook of one of the Blevins selections at this time.

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  14. No, not usually. I used to underline or highlight or make notes in the margins of college texts. I would never make marks or dog-ear pages in a library book. I do make notes on recipes, such as alterations I’ve made.

    I’m listening to one of the Blevins selections on audiobook, but I think I’d get more out of it if I read it. I might still do that. I won’t be at the next Blevins anyway. I’ll be up north, but I’ll still read the selections.

    OT: Linda, thanks for your advice regarding credit reports. I haven’t had any luck finding out why my score dropped so far (184 points). I’m going to try to find a credit advisor. I called Equifax. The person I talked to said she didn’t know why my score dropped so much either. Everyone tells me I don’t have any credit data because I’m not using any credit, which is true. But why did it drop 184 points in one week? Nothing else has changed. There are no new accounts opened on my credit report. Frustrating and worrisome.

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    1. I was going to suggest putting a plan in there lace for buying your new townhome but waiting if you can . This market really sucks . prices and interest rates will drop in a year

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      1. I keep telling myself to just wait. I’ll have to wait now. My brother the banker reminded me that if interest rates drop, demand will increase and that will only drive prices higher. Homes in Northfield are really expensive. Most are going for $400K-$500K, and they’re flying off the market. Thanks for the advice.

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  15. My point of view on diagraming sentences: the point is to teach students to understand grammar (structure of the language, not usage, that is social rules about language). You are teaching them a second language to understand the first language, English. I believe if you understand English grammar, you will understand the second language diagraming. But so what? If you don’t understand English grammar, diagraming will frustrate the hell out of you. Many many studies have demonstrated that teaching grammar has little impact on reading, writing, speaking. I taught my students how to manipulate sentences, other ways to say it, how to vary sentences by beginning, length, and structure.

    Writing in books: Bill sees all books as sacred (small s) objects. An interesting point of view. I admire it but don’t agree. To teach literature I wrote in my copy of the book, I mean MY copy, not the school’s copy. You can thus guess how I feel about proper treatment of library books. But the one book I wrote in the most until I wore out the book was the Sacred book, as some would say, the Bible. Sermon prep and hospital visits and such were the reason. There are “rules” out there about how to dispose of a Bible, such as burying it, or cremating, with proper ceremony and respect. I never do that. The Bible that is Sacred is not a Bible printed on paper but the one that is from which it is still being developed. This is the only way I am an idealist.
    This is just Clyde’s opinion. I have been castigated for years for my failure to teach many things, or how I taught. Go ahead,throw your verbal spears at me.

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    1. I learned from few Muslim believers that the Qur-an should never be put on the floor, left unopened if not being read and always placed highest in a library. I suspect that at least a little of that was their personal opinion. At any rate, I was glad to have not written my name inside my copy as I’ve done for most of the books in my personal library.

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      1. When I was thirteen, I had several pen pals in other countries. One of them was a boy my age from Morocco. After exchanging only a couple of letters, he sent me a copy of the Koran in English. At that point in my life, I had never met a Muslim, and I was not particularly interested in learning about other religions, so I never read it. I kept it several years, but it didn’t make the trip across the Atlantic with me. Knowing my dad’s opinion of religions of all stripes, I have no doubt that it was unceremoniously tossed in the trash.

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  19. I love all kinds of sorting, including diagraming – a kind of sorting of words. Sorting, and therefore diagraming, doesn’t come easily to everyone, but it does to me – love to see where everything fits. But I agree with Clyde that most people can speak, write, etc. perfectly well without it.

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  20. I have a copy of a book that belonged to my aunt, a treasury of American literature. She had made extensive notes in it. She taught school briefly when she was young, so I think this book was a teaching copy. It does make it hard to know what to do with a book – there’s no secondary market for books like this.

    I make corrections constantly when reading or listening to audiobooks or other spoken word material. My corrections are made in imaginary red pencil – I don’t like to blemish something and make it less attractive to pass along.

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  21. I often find mistakes in texts. When a book has a lot of them, I put it down to sloppy production—proofreading by spellcheck, etc. I don’t feel the need to call them out, however. What would that prove?

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