| ashu |
Posted
on 17-Feb-01 11:41 AM
Thanks to San for adding the dictionary option.
I am a strong believer in writing with clarity,
simplicity and force, and I try to practice
that belief whenever I can. At the least, I
hope readers do not have consult a dictionary
to understand what I am saying.
And so, whenever I am asked to comment on or edit
a piece of writing such as an application essay,
a letter of recommendation and so on, two questions
I always ask are these:
a) is it clear?
b) is it written in simple, everyday English?
c) is it persuasive? (i.e. does it make valid use of
logic and evidence?)
Most well-known Nepali writers writing in English
(and Dr. Tara Nath Sharma comes to my mind) are just
bad writers for these reasons:
ONE: they try to use big, fancy words when small
will do.
For example:
Instead of saying, "Since he was drunk, he was taken
home in a car."
These bad writers say something like, "Since he
was found to be in a state of inebriation or
intoxication, he was ambulated to his domicile
in a vehicle."
I mean, that whole thing just sounds so phoney and
stupid. Only people from the 18th century may speak
and writes like that.
Yet these bad Nepali writers are more concerned
about showing off their "suga-raw.tie vocabulary"
at the expense of natural, easy self-expression.
Unfortunately, only a few Nepalis who have a larger
vocabulary (say a score of 750-plus on SAT or GRE
verbal) and write in simple, clear English may be
able to detect the insecurities stuck in the psyche
of these bad writers.
TWO: the bad writers try to be literary and
'sahityik', when clarity and simplicity are needed.
Bad writers seem to think that if your writing
is not flowery, if your writing is not long-winded,
and if your writing is not unclear in some parts,
then it's not -- ahem! -- real writing.
That's bullshit!
I mean, the world does not yet another Nepali bad
writer trying to be a 'sahityakar'in English by using
unnatural sentences, and making a fool of
himself (for such a 'sahityakar' is usually a he!)
in the process.
But the world does need many, many Nepali
writers -- writing about the arts and the sciences
in simple, clear language with honesty, passion and
a dose of humanity. Little wonder then that someone
like Tara Nath, writing in "trying-to-be-sahityik"
English, can NEVER, NEVER be taken seriously, even
though he did spend seven years in the US.
THREE: Most bad writers in Nepal have never been
told that their writing sucks. In the US, your
editor tells you that your writing needs improvement;
or your professor gives you suggestions; or your
roommates offer you comments . . . and you learn
to write better and better.
But in Nepal and in Nepali communities, shorn of
critical comments, devoid of smarter peers and
friends who should be merciless/devastating with
criticisms, bad writers gain instant fame by
just being, well, writers.
And you gain instant fame, where's the incentive
to work hard at your writing? Pretty soon, you start
using words like 'salubrious' and 'caterwaul', and
think of yourself as a 'thulo manche' -- a real
writer!!
So much so that you start reacting violently to
critical feedbacks and criticisms . . . and treat
opposition to your style/mode of writing with
disdain and contempt. Such, such has been the
path -- filled with easy, safe, continuous
praise -- taken by many of Nepal's once promising
writers who are now, well, bad, bad lekhaks.
To sum up, some of the best American magazines
(Harvard Business Review; The New Yorker; The
New York Review of Books) are written in simple,
clear, forceful English. Likewise, many of the
best books in economics, science, philosophy
and the law are also models of simplicity and
clarity. Moreover, much of contemporary fiction
is concerned with extraordinary verbal constructions
with simple, everyday words.
Against this backdrop, the challenge for competent
Nepali writers is NOT to continue sending their
readers to dictionaries as though they were running
a "tuition" for GRE, but to come up with insights
in simple, clear English.
Just my thoughts; please feel free to disagree.
oohi
ashu
And
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 17-Feb-01 05:40 PM
Ashu:
I found your view pretty interesting.You have tried to express
your attitude towards a few Nepalese writers(bad writers), and I
think that your points are noteworthy.
In the same vein,I expect you to come up with some comments
about the writing style of Salman Rushdie, James Joyce and TS
Eliot. Their prose gave me a lot of problem while reading. I
once even wrote that Midnight Children, Satanic Verses and
Finnagane's Wake were the worst novels I ever read.
Actually, I once even decried Mohan Koirala, Lekhanath Paudel
and even Devkota for their poems and proses really bothered me
a lot.Even Ishwar Ballav. How and why they wrote such
indecipherable words?For whom? Why should not we give up using
those words and let them vanish? Why not we use long 'compact and
full of meaning' in spite of short 'pithy'?
Yea, Ashu. They are really bad writers. I think among the best
writers must be the speech writers of Lalu Yadav, whose words
are amusing and interesting and accessible to everybody.
In Science, like you, I also wondered why these people use such
bombastic words to define new terminology? Why Newton said
'Gravitation ' rather than just a 'pulling force'? That was
less formiddable word.Why 'Kinetic' energy, 'Kaleidoscope',
'Thermodynamics' came to exist, rather than 'moving''fastlymoving
object observer' and 'heat and speed science'? Why still new words
like 'renderer' 'peripatetic' 'nomadic' are coined in computer science field?Why doctors say 'cardiovascular' for heart's channel
or a lot of those words 'pletyhelmenthis', 'dicotyledonous', 'epidectic' were used in terminlogy of biology or zoology?
The use of these difficult sounding words lies in their power to
express the meaning, which is otherwise difficult to convey
in equally smaller word.Again, how many people understand your
writing in Nepal? Even though you write in very plain and very
clear Nepali/English, there are always some people who have
problem understanding a lot of your sentences.And to write the
sentences like this
>>Most well-known Nepali writers writing in English (and Dr. Tara
Nath Sharma comes to my mind) are just bad writers
only makes people to think that you think yourself as the
better writer than most well-known writers of Nepal. I agree with
you, you are among the best writer I have ever read, your clarity
of writing is unprecedented, you deserve to be nominated for the
best awards available for writing,but probably other people will
have difficulty to take it so easily.
I always think words are tools of a writer.Writing appropriate
words helps him express his thoughts.While working, a person has
to use new tools, sometimes very difficult tools also, to make
his result better.Using new tools makes work easier. You can come
to New York on boat and car also, but boarding a plane is surely
a better way to achieve the same result.It sounds ludicrous when
you blaim people for riding a plane.
I think ,of course, you can blaim a teacher if he/she teaches in a
primary school and uses such words. A writer has freedom to write
in any form he wants, choose any bracket of audience for himself,
and if you don't want to read his articles, that is perfectly
fine, or if you want to criticise his articles, that is also
perfectly fine.
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