4216: Them's Fightin' Words

[jen_aside]

In tenth grade, our English Literature class [I tend to call it these days, because it's not strictly "English" class like Spanish or French class] took the PSATs or other, immediately following which our teacher proceeded to spend the remainder of the period lecturing us on what the correct answers were. This is relatively insignificant until he

Comments

[digoraccoon]

As an Aside, just say "green car". Or was that wrong too for being too easy? :D

[jen_aside]

The exercise is about efficiency with words, too--"green" is as irrelevant to the overarching narrative as "Ford Mustang," even. I forget in what context the car was mentioned in the first place, but even one excess word is considered unfavourable [and even "unfavourable" would be unfavourable on account of using British spelling vs. the slightly more economical American "unfavorable"]. Adverbs are particularly frowned upon unless specifically important to the narrative: "he spoke quickly" gives important information about the rate at which he spoke vs. "he shouted loudly" which is redundant [he shouted quietly?].

So, still wrong.

[digoraccoon]

A bit too efficient I think? But well if that's the exercise then I guess I'd pick B.

[jen_aside]

Efficiency is an ongoing process. It's not always about one specific sentence, though in certain cases it's been used in jokes [successfully or not is a different matter], such as in the exchange: "I went to my green car." "Why do you say your GREEN car? You only have the one!"

With print, it's more often that the slight savings on ink adds up over time, which is why American publishers use the non-"ou" spellings of various words [color vs. colour] and don't use the Oxford comma ["he ate bacon, lettuce and tomato" vs. "he ate bacon, lettuce, and tomato"]... I forget what "no Oxford comma" is called and am certain that will send me down an Internet rabbit hole if I look =p but you get the idea.