To Be, Or Not To Be ...
... apparently should not have appeared in my paper on Hamlet.
Ok. So, if we were writing on that soliloquy we could quote it. But my prof has some vendetta against being verbs. And helping verbs. Although, her assignment sheet didn't convince me that she knows the difference. There was a list: am, is, are, be, were, was, have, has, had. No mention of would, could, should or will. And no delineation of the fact that 'am, is, were, was, be' are sometimes helping, some times stative. We were to go through our papers and circle them all. Then, note how many we had per average page. The healthy number was not more than five. More than that detracted, so she said, from the liveliness of our language. *Sigh.*
Now, this exercise had it's uses. (The preceding 'had,' you'll note, is neither stative, nor helping, but possessive.)
I've recently developed issues with passive voice. I've been studying Greek and Latin for some while now, and in both languages there is nothing whatever wrong with using passive voice. One professor suggested that passive voice was better style in inflected languages than in English because it took no more words to say something passively than actively with inflected verbs. Latin: amant (active) vs. amantur (passive). English: They love vs. they are loved. The extra word takes up space. English writers (particularly post Hemingway, curse him!) like brevity. They like clean, concise sentences. I like passive voice sometimes though. It allows you to place the important part of a thought at the front of your sentence where it will get the most notice. With a few passive sentences, I didn't have to start every thought with "Hamlet ...", which seemed terribly redundant and boring. But, alas. I write in English, therefore, I have to abide by English conventions. Fine. So, the little 'helping verb' exercise did bring six or so passive clauses/sentences in my five page paper to my attention, which I rearranged to active voice. I liked them the way they were, but sic vita vivitur.
I also discovered four-ish sentences/clauses which I changed from stative verb-oriented to action-verb oriented with little dilemma. And, believe it or not, I found as many as four real 'helping verbs' (e.g. was thinking, is doing) (half of which I also liked) and eradicated them all.
However, there remained almost half of my original number of being verbs. And still too many of them according to the revision instructions. Expletive! My thesis was centered around intangible, abstract concepts (emotional states, subjective definitions of honor, and that sort of cerebral stuff). Not so much on the action when you're writing about things which are thoughts. Thoughts don't do stuff. It's really difficult to write action-verbs, in active voiced sentences, when more than half of your content cannot, by nature, act.
So, I scrambled around trying to find other ways to say 'is.' The result? Remained. Became. Exists. Subsists. Arose. A lot of purple nonsense! When I was done, I had to print my paper out and be to class in ten minutes. But I was not convinced all of my persnickety revision actually strengthened my paper. Or really made my writing any livelier.
And what I'm left wondering is this: are being verbs like dialogue tags? Should purple-isms (such as remain, become, exist, etc.) be avoided like book-isms (cry, exclaim, pronounce, cough, shout, spit)? Or is my professor really on track with telling us to give the being verbs the ax? Is language that much livelier for lack of 'is'? If so, is it enough livelier that it's worth making an audience stop and read 'subsist' when they could assume 'was' in half the time?
Ok. So, if we were writing on that soliloquy we could quote it. But my prof has some vendetta against being verbs. And helping verbs. Although, her assignment sheet didn't convince me that she knows the difference. There was a list: am, is, are, be, were, was, have, has, had. No mention of would, could, should or will. And no delineation of the fact that 'am, is, were, was, be' are sometimes helping, some times stative. We were to go through our papers and circle them all. Then, note how many we had per average page. The healthy number was not more than five. More than that detracted, so she said, from the liveliness of our language. *Sigh.*
Now, this exercise had it's uses. (The preceding 'had,' you'll note, is neither stative, nor helping, but possessive.)
I've recently developed issues with passive voice. I've been studying Greek and Latin for some while now, and in both languages there is nothing whatever wrong with using passive voice. One professor suggested that passive voice was better style in inflected languages than in English because it took no more words to say something passively than actively with inflected verbs. Latin: amant (active) vs. amantur (passive). English: They love vs. they are loved. The extra word takes up space. English writers (particularly post Hemingway, curse him!) like brevity. They like clean, concise sentences. I like passive voice sometimes though. It allows you to place the important part of a thought at the front of your sentence where it will get the most notice. With a few passive sentences, I didn't have to start every thought with "Hamlet ...", which seemed terribly redundant and boring. But, alas. I write in English, therefore, I have to abide by English conventions. Fine. So, the little 'helping verb' exercise did bring six or so passive clauses/sentences in my five page paper to my attention, which I rearranged to active voice. I liked them the way they were, but sic vita vivitur.
I also discovered four-ish sentences/clauses which I changed from stative verb-oriented to action-verb oriented with little dilemma. And, believe it or not, I found as many as four real 'helping verbs' (e.g. was thinking, is doing) (half of which I also liked) and eradicated them all.
However, there remained almost half of my original number of being verbs. And still too many of them according to the revision instructions. Expletive! My thesis was centered around intangible, abstract concepts (emotional states, subjective definitions of honor, and that sort of cerebral stuff). Not so much on the action when you're writing about things which are thoughts. Thoughts don't do stuff. It's really difficult to write action-verbs, in active voiced sentences, when more than half of your content cannot, by nature, act.
So, I scrambled around trying to find other ways to say 'is.' The result? Remained. Became. Exists. Subsists. Arose. A lot of purple nonsense! When I was done, I had to print my paper out and be to class in ten minutes. But I was not convinced all of my persnickety revision actually strengthened my paper. Or really made my writing any livelier.
And what I'm left wondering is this: are being verbs like dialogue tags? Should purple-isms (such as remain, become, exist, etc.) be avoided like book-isms (cry, exclaim, pronounce, cough, shout, spit)? Or is my professor really on track with telling us to give the being verbs the ax? Is language that much livelier for lack of 'is'? If so, is it enough livelier that it's worth making an audience stop and read 'subsist' when they could assume 'was' in half the time?