What's the best line in the entire piece and why? Think about our discussion with MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail. Think about MLK's use of sentence structure and language. Where has your writer dazzled you, but only in one sentence. Be sure to share that sentence.
12 comments:
line: Earlier this week, it was revealed that adult men are all really a bunch of cry-baby pansies who can't get over break-ups.
article: We Asked Some Male VICE Writers to Tell Us About Their Worst Ever Break-Up
''
This is the best line in the entire piece because the rest of the piece is just sad. This line is misleading and makes the reader think that the rest of the piece will be fun. The use of passive voice makes the tone mockingly scholar-like. I like this sentence a lot because it is shocking and makes the opener to this piece the best part about it.
Article: Jamie Woon: Making Time review – excellent, soul-styled second album
Sentence: From the first track, Message, drums and bass dominate, as tracks emerge out of a soulful, primordial murk, with every note and lyric sounding honed, terse and meticulously crafted.
I do not know who Jamie Woon is, nor do I care, but this sentence set my literary senses aflame. The flawless use of commas and the artfully crafted complex sentence structure makes this sentence amazing to me. The structure of the sentence makes a ton of room for as much description as the author wanted to jam pack into the sentence. The overall skill it took to make this sentence grammatically correct astounds me in and of itself.
Article: "Are You Sure You Want the Job?" by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times Op-ed, 10/21/15
My favorite line: "Welcome to the future of warfare: superpowers versus superempowered angry men — and a tag-team of cybercriminals and cyberterrorists."
I really enjoy this line because it sums up the previous several paragraphs of information in one simple sentence. As Friedman often does, the line brings a complex situation into almost humorously stark relief through his ability to summarize complex topics in everyday language.
I especially like his punctuation here. His use of a colon to introduce his take on the "future of warfare" allows him to make his description a sentence fragment; I don't think this sentence would be as stark if the description had to be incorporated into a standalone clause. In addition, the dash provides, in my opinion, a little dose of understatement. The "cybercriminals and cyberterrorists" are actually a very important part of the issue this article is describing, but using the dash tacks them onto the end of the sentence almost as an afterthought. This understatement is slightly humorous and even draws more attention to the last part of the sentence by isolating it.
Article: "The Evolution of Simplicity" by David Brooks, New York Times Op-Ed, 11/3/15
Line: "Cleaning out the closets and paring down the wardrobe has become a religious ritual for many — a search for serenity, a blow against stress, and a longing for a beauty that is found by pruning away what is not."
I think this line is the best of this particular entry, as it very eloquently and accurately describes a very common occurrence for humans (literally and metaphorically). In context, Brooks is referencing people's desire and need to simplify -- using the metaphor of cleaning out a closet to visually represent this recurring phenomenon. I personally can relate to literally cleaning out my closet out of a desire to simplify my wardrobe, thus making it more accessible; I also can relate to the impulse to simplify other more abstract things in life to feel more in control. I think what makes this line stand apart from the rest in this piece is its incredibly intentional usage of accessible metaphor and its lulling vocabulary/diction.
Article: Poppy Bush Finally Gives Junior a Spanking by Maureen Dowd
Line: While W. used to say that what he liked about Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld was their brass appendages, Poppy offered a dimmer anatomical appraisal, calling each an “iron-ass.”
I liked this line because it was humorous and a great play on words, but it still got the point across effectively. While W. thought of his peers as strong-willed, his father saw them as idiotic and somewhat war-mongering. Bush 41 has long stayed silent on his son's presidency and who W. surrounded himself with, and when he finally spoke up he offered his candid opinion, as comes across in this line.
Article: "Beyond Feng Shui" by Joe Queenan, found on csicop.org
Line: Clearly, feng che has a long way to go before it can claim that kind of influence, but if the current mood in Los Angeles is any indication, feng che will soon be coming to an interstate, an intersection or a multilevel parking garage near you.
This line is fairly simple, but in this particularly lengthy piece the direct address of the reader was refreshing. There is also some underlying snark that I sensed in this sentence, which is always my favorite aspect of Queenan's writing. The sentence is predicting feng che while also seemingly selling it, as if on late night TV, which is an interesting tactic that I appreciated.
Article: Can the modern working father have it all? - Richard Cohen
Line: "Many a man has pledged such a thing, explaining years later to those very kids that he meant well — but, heck, lots of people relied on him and . . . sorry."
This sentence is structured in such a way that is almost as if it is taken from conversation. It gives me an image of an older business man with a cigar in his mouth looking down at a child. He doesn't care much for the child, he just is stating that that's the way it is . . . sorry. This is the part of Cohen's writing that I enjoy the most, the brutal honesty when it comes to showing opinions and facts.
Article: "Timothy Bradley follows plan and knocks out Brandon Rios"
Line: "Bradley had swarmed and bombed and jabbed and hooked."
This line caught my attention because of its repetition and use of strong verbs. It stands out from the rest of the paragraph and the entire piece. It is incredibly fitting for this article because they are talking about a specific boxing match and with these verbs I am able to visualize what is happening very clearly. This short line has such a strong impact in the readers mind and urges them want to keep reading.
Article: Jim Tomsula noncommittal on Blaine Gabbert as QB
Line: "While Gabbert did provide a spark to a moribund offense -- the Niners entered the day ranked No. 32 in the NFL and had scored the fewest points in the league -- by throwing a pair of touchdown passes to tight end Garrett Celek, he was more game manager than game-changer"
This line stands out to me because it highlights the sorry state of the forty niners' offense. After watching todays game a sense of satisfaction consumed me as thoughts of winning out the rest of the season entered my head. However, this line highlights the mediocracy of Blane Gabbert's performance. Even though it demolished any hope I still held for the niners this season, I like the line because it highlights the sorry state of their offense; as a fan it has eliminated my ignorance of the dreadful state of the team.
Article: “Finding the American Ideal in Queens” by Richard Brody for the New Yorker, November 3, 2015
Line: “The discussions that he films involve such matters as fair labor practices, gentrification, the legal ramifications of urban gardening, the push for change in traffic-safety regulations, school redistricting, police harassment of gay and transgender bar patrons, fear of deportation, citizenship-test study, and the laws and norms to pass a taxi-driver test.”
What I absolutely love about this sentence syntax-wise is the fact that it’s simply a long list. There’s a way to read it in your head with a droning voice, but I read this with every new item on the list spoken (or written) louder and louder, the polymer of “matters” becoming more and more engaging as the chain continues. I’m usually amused by how pretentious some of Brody’s articles are and how that show up in the sentence structure (which it most certainly does in this piece, too), but this sentence was simple, unexplained, without pompousness. As baroque as the sentence might seem at first glance, it is comparatively minimalistic to the other sentences in this article and others. It’s completely anomalous which makes it refreshing.
Article: "'Ban the box' is a band-aid on a gaping wound that is mass imprisonment" by Steven W Thrasher
Line: The Black Lives Matter movement – and a public consciousness which has been waking up to our mass incarceration epidemic over the past few years, reflected in the popularity of books like Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow – have pushed politicians running for president on the left and right to embrace “ban the box”. But this just reflects an alliterative catchphrase that’s fun to repeat, not informed endorsement of a reform that will make lasting change.
In these lines I think his use of the hyphen is effective in structuring his sentence. He is able to add his commentary and information on the Black Lives Matter movement without having to make two sentences, thus making it more streamline and efficient as a sentence. I also think the content of these lines are significant and his ability to state his opinion and sum up the article in a couple lines is an important skill to have as a writer.
Article: "The Case for Bernie Sanders" (Matt Taibbi, November 3, 2015
The best line in Taibbi's article this week was "I got into the act a few weeks back, gushing about how Trey Gowdy's Benghazi hearing solved Hillary Clinton's voter-sympathy problem. Quite a development in the soap opera! But a million miles from anything that matters." It's not especially aesthetically pleasing or overflowing with rich vocabulary, but the message behind it packs a punch. Taibbi is doing a very difficult self-analysis and discounts articles that he himself wrote as unimportant. For someone that writes about politics for a living, this was a bold move. I admire that Taibbi decided to share this thought with his readers, because in a system that he points out is focused on money, self-deprecation is not something he should want to be doing.
Post a Comment