The English Miscellany

Quintilian, a highly esteemed Latin rhetorician, argues that composition involves learning a skill. He compares composition with the craft of the musician and with the skills of the sportsman. In his larger project, writing is linked with civic participation, with the arts of cultivation, and with the progress from the natural savage to a state of civilization. Writing should aim to flow harmoniously. Quintilian's Institutes of the Orator , Book 9 (trans. charles Rollin, 1774), 143-146. I well know, that there are some, who will not allow of any care in composition, contending that our words as they flow by chance, how uncouth soever they may sound, are not only more natural, but likewise more manly. If what first sprung from nature, indebted for nothing to care and industry, be only what they deem natural, I allow that the art of oratory in this respect has no pretensions to that quality.  For it is certain that the first men did not speak according to the ...

Today I am sharing the FURTHER READING list published in my book The Art of Connection: the Social Life of Sentences (Quibble Academic 2013): Amidon, Arlene. "Children's understanding of sentences with contingent relations: Why are temporal and conditional connectives so difficult?" Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 22.3 (1976): 423-437. Astington, Janet Wilde, Janette Pelletier, and Bruce Homer. "Theory of mind and epistemological development: The relation between children's second-order false-belief understanding and their ability to reason about evidence." New Ideas in Psychology 20.2 (2002): 131-144. Bakewell, Sarah. How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer . Vintage, 2011. Baker, Linda. "Comprehension monitoring: Identifying and coping with text confusions." Journal of Literacy Research 11.4 (1979): 365-374. Bates, Elisabeth, Philip S. Dale, and Donna Thal. ...

Use the words in bold to fill in the gaps: 1. They were _________ delighted with the concert; at the end of the evening they applauded___________. 2. Sinners do not listen to the ___________ of preachers. 3. I am not _________ to drinking brandy in _________weather conditions. 4. Tourists are not __________ to walk on the lawn in the quadrangle. 5. I _________ you to refrain from ringing the alarm bell. 6. How will you   _______ a change in his behaviour? 7. I am pleased to _________ your confessions, _________ the one concerning murder. Accept         Advice                  Allowed       Advise        All together Averse        Altogether             Effect       ...

A selection of some of the curious quotations included in my new book, The Art of Connection . ‘After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going into the garden at once;’ (Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , 1865) ‘At present, we may truly be thankful that a reform in this matter has commenced.’ (Albert Day, Methomania: A treatise on Alcoholic Poisoning , 1867) ‘Before I dismiss the uses of architecture, and indeed of the Arts generally, I cannot but dwell for a moment on the amazing effects they have had, on the labour and mechanical skill of our country.’ (Henry Dilworth Gilpin, An annual discourse before the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts , 1827) ‘But finally they lost patience, seeing that their reformatory efforts went for nothing, and threw both friends and strangers overboard.’ (Mark Twain, What is Man? and Other Essays , 1906) ‘Forthwith he made the well his objective. In that country wells were not plentiful...