tutoring and what all English nerds (and haters) should know...

[sonanova]

I confess it. I am an English nerd. I admit that this is something I have known for some time, but I never realized it was quite like this. For instance, I actually enjoy teaching grammar. Of course, I have discovered that bad writing goes far beyond not knowing the difference betweeen past and present tense. I also know now that passive

Comments

[tarcos]

This is like English porn.

[duck2ducks]

I discovered much of this for the first time in John Gardner's The Art of Fiction, which turned a decent book on writing into an eye-opening one. Much like you, I wondered how I could have come this far - and read so many other books on writing from so many other authors - before having this very simple idea pointed out.

Perhaps it's because the confusion of different tenses is one of the things that separates the good writing from the bad - but an awareness of things like passive sentences is something that can separate the good writing from the excellent.

[benpeek]

yay!