CHAPTER I
ADJ.
Look to the adjectives.
Virgil Thomson
Kicking things off with adjectives is a little like starting a kids' birthday party with the broccoli course. Because as far as not getting respect goes, adjectives leave Rodney Dangerfield in the dust. They rank right up there with Osama bin Laden, Geraldo Rivera, and the customer service policies of cable TV companies. That it is good to avoid them is one of the few points on which the sages of writing agree. Thus Voltaire: "The adjective is the enemy of the noun." Thus William Zinsser: "Most adjectives are . . . unnecessary. Like adverbs, they are sprinkled into sentences by writers who don't stop to think that the concept is already in the noun."
And thus the title of this book, a piece of advice traditionally attributed to Mark Twain.
Even the ancient Greeks seem to ...
read full excerpt from When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It ebook
