Have you ever been accused of wordiness? Overblown language? Self-conscious prose? Even the most experienced writers sometimes have trouble killing our verbal darlings and cutting to the chase. There isa place and time for Latinate lusciousness, but it isn’t usually here and now. We’ll find out why when we explore both our classical language roots and what we’ve inherited from those ruffians who sacked Rome. (Don’t even get me started on the French—sacre bleu!That’s a whole other lecture.) Bring paper and pencil or your weapons of choice: we will be writing hard and fast!
Recommended Reading: The Miracle of Language by Richard Lederer; Steering the Craft, Chapter 5 by Ursula LeGuin; Rain/Reign by Ann M. Martin; Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver; Garden Time by W.C. Merwin. DEFINITELY not required, but good for a look at the “four square” language of our “Barbarian” predecessors: Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Bi-lingual edition) by Seamus Heaney (Translator).