Constance Hale
American editor
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Whether West Indian creole, the idioms of the Deep South, or Lake Wobegonics, nonstandard English remembers the strong link between the spoken and the written, a link getting even stronger in this age of email. Slang, vernacular, the colloquial all have a place in literary writing. Without abandoning prose with a capital P, we can build the musicality of our writing by listening to the street.
Constance Hale, American editor, Sin and Syntax, 1999
Posted on June 29, 2000 at 8:23 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
English [is] a robust, swarthy tongue, capable of surviving tumult and thriving on innovation.
Constance Hale, American editor, Sin and Syntax, 1999
Posted on August 7, 2000 at 6:35 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Writers today must navigate the shifting verbal currents of the post-Gutenberg era. When does jargon end and a new vernacular begin? Where’s the line between neologism and hype? What's the language of the global village? How can we keep pace with technology without getting bogged down in buzzwords? Is it possible to write about machines without losing a sense of humanity and poetry?
Constance Hale, American editor, Wired Style, 1999
Posted on September 17, 1998 at 3:38 PM
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