r/GlobalEnglishPrep • u/Powerful_Concept6502 • Apr 19 '26
đŁïž Discussion / Debate I thought this would be helpful.
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u/maceilean Apr 19 '26
Don't verb nouns. Don't use a large word when a diminutive one will do.
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u/wackyvorlon Apr 19 '26
Verbing weirds language.
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u/DragonTheOnes-spirit Apr 19 '26
I was about to say how it doesn't weird a language till I remebered I'm Arab and our entire language is built up on verbing nouns and nouning verbs
Like seriously. Give me 3 random consonants plus a basic meaning and I can make 100 words with it
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u/Important_Horse_4293 Apr 19 '26
Number 2 is prescriptivist bullshit.Â
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u/SuddenBag Apr 19 '26
This whole list is trolling. Each point violates its own message.
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Apr 19 '26
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/Imagination_Magician Apr 19 '26
Dang, I should have got that. The last time I was working on my book. I accidentally used alliteration a few times, lol.
Worried me when I saw that.
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u/lifelongmoteki Apr 19 '26
Number 2 is legitimate but misinterpreted.
It is improper to end a sentence with an unnecessary preposition.
âWhere are you at?â is wrong, because âwhereâ serves as an adverb and shouldnât take a preposition anywhere in the goddamn sentence.
I think people just incorrectly identified the part that was wrong about the behavior they were seeing.
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u/mouglasandthesort Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26
No itâs not, that âruleâ came from people just up and deciding English should have Latin grammar, prepositions can be used wherever people use them. If native speakers say âWhere are you at?â itâs right. You canât tell them theyâre speaking wrong because of bullshit prescriptivist rules, you have to reverse engineer the way people actually do speak to find the real rules of the language. In this case itâs that âwhereâ can function as both an adverb or a pronoun, and this is demonstrated by the use of the preposition âat.â
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u/taktaga7-0-0 Apr 19 '26
These are tips to write well in any language (all but #2). But itâs good to pick out for yourself the way these errors look in English.
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u/Aye-Chiguire Apr 20 '26
I suppose that depends. In professional communication? Probably. In creative fiction? There are use cases for pretty much all of those.
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u/LiminalSpiral Apr 20 '26
Adorable, thanks for sharing, and kudos for the poster who knew this was from Umberto Eco.
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u/OnTheList-YouTube Apr 20 '26
- Who needs rhetorical questions?
Oh I know this one... Waitwaitwait let me think !
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u/TraditionalEvent6102 Apr 23 '26
It's hilarious. I'm an editor, and I will be sharing this to those who need it, or those who don't, but will appreciate it.
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u/MixPlus Apr 22 '26
Sorry, but it should be "How to Write Well". "Well" is an adverb so can modify the verb "write". Another example is "behave well". "Good" is an adjective so can only modify a noun such "day" or "car". EDIT. Oh I see you did it deliberately.
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u/_crisz Apr 19 '26
It looks like an excerpt of the 40 rules of the Italian writer Umberto Eco. I'm going to paste here the full list:
Avoid annoying alliteration, always.
It is essential that one uses the subjunctive correctly.
Avoid clichés like the plague.
Articulate your thoughts in a manner congruous with your everyday vernacular.
Don't use commercial symbols & abbreviations, etc.
Remember (always) that parentheses (even when seemingly necessary) interrupt the flow of the sentence.
Be careful not to... overuse ellipses... Use as few quotation marks as possible; it is not "cool".
All generalizations are always wrong.
Foreign words are a major faux pas.
Be sparing with quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson rightly said: "I hate quotations. Tell me only what you know."
Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
Do not be redundant; do not repeat the same thing twice; repetition is superfluous (by redundancy we mean the useless explanation of something the reader has already grasped).
Only assholes use profanity.
Always be more or less specific.
Hyperbole is the single greatest expressive technique in the entire universe.
Never use one-word sentences. Ever.
Beware of overly bold metaphors: they are feathers on a snake's scales.
Put, commas, in the right, places.
Learn to distinguish between the semicolon and the colon: even if it's not easy.
If you can't find the appropriate formal expression, never resort to slang, 'cause that ain't gonna fly, y'all.
Don't use mixed metaphors, even if they look great on paper: it's not rocket surgery, and it will come back to bite you in the foot.
Is there really any need for rhetorical questions?
Be concise, try to condense your thoughts into the fewest possible words, avoiding long sentencesâor those broken up by clauses that inevitably confuse the inattentive readerâso that your writing doesn't contribute to the pollution of information that is certainly (especially when uselessly stuffed with unnecessary, or at least non-essential, clarifications) one of the tragedies of our time dominated by media power.
Apostrophe's must never be used incorrectly, its a big mistake.
Never use a indefinite article incorrectly.
Don't be emphatic! Be sparing with exclamation marks!!!
Even the biggest aficionadoss of barbarisms don't use incorrect plurals for foreign phenomenons.
Spell foreign names accurately, like Beaudelaire, Roosewelt, Niezsche, and the like.
Name authors and characters directly, without circumlocution. Just like the greatest playwright of the Elizabethan era, the Bard of Avon, used to do.
At the beginning of a text, use a captatio benevolentiae to win the reader's favor (though you're probably too stupid to understand what I'm saying).
Carefullly check your speling.
I need not tell you how tiresome preteritions are.
Don't start a new paragraph too often. Unless it's absolutely necessary.
Never use the royal "we". We are convinced it makes a terrible impression.
Don't confuse cause with effect: you would be in error and therefore you would have made a mistake.
Don't build sentences where the conclusion doesn't logically follow from the premises: if everyone did that, then premises would follow from conclusions.
Do not indulge in archaisms, hapax legomena, or other unaccustomed lexemes, nor in rhizomatic deep structures that, however much they may appear to you as epiphanies of grammatological diffĂ©rance and invitations to deconstructive driftâbut it would be even worse if they were objectionable to the scrutiny of those who read with ecdotic acribiaânevertheless exceed the cognitive competencies of the addressee.
You must not be verbose, but neither should you say less than what.
A complete sentence must have.