新编英语教程7style and purpose randolph quirk

Part of the intricacy of co-ordination in using language lies, as we saw in the previous chapter, in the different constraints operating in speech and writing. But, as we know well, the constrains do not fall neatly into a twofold division, ‘speaking’versus ‘writing’. The stylistic range of English is wide and ultimately the gradations are infinite. When we are putting words together, we have to see that they are congruous with the expectations at some point on this scale and that they are arranged according to the conventions of collocation and grammar-with the reference to the same point on the scale.

It may seem paradoxical to lay such stress on being conventional in the use of English when we may well fell that the big prizes to go to people who are so unconventional in their English. It is by no means certain that the big prize are so awarded, but whatever our opinion of this, there seems to be a general agreement that cries of ‘look, mother: no hands!’are especially unimpressive when we have still not properly mastered the art of cycling in the conventions manner. Before trying to write like Gertrude Stein, we have to school ourselves to observe and to use English within the strictest conventions – and we have support in this from the words of Mr Robert gravees6 quoted in the last chapter.

Without a norm, it is difficult to recognize or practice originality. You may have sampled a variety of ice-cream which has little bits of crystallized ginger in it, and you may have come across it being marketed with the rather fetching gimmick, ‘fre ezing hot ice-cream’. Here is a case where a departure from conventional collocation is very effective. The title of noel coward’s play, bitter sweet, is a better known example, and most of us have at some time been amuses by hoary witticisms like ‘the hand that rocked the cradle has kicked the bucket’. In all these examples, we are recognize that ‘bitter’ and ‘sweet’ are mutually exclusive and not normally collocable that the junction of them can be effective,. The effectiveness of ‘freezing hot ice-cream’ depends on the tension that is set up between this and the normal collocations of ‘freezing’and ‘hot’(such as ‘freezing cold’ and ‘boiling hot’).

The order of events in our strategy, then, must be first to observe the conventional arrangements and the points to which they belong in the stylistic range: again, it is necessary to insist on the central importance of keeping in line with actual usage. We observe that if people we expect begin a letter ‘dear Mr. Jones’, they will close it with ‘yours sincerely’, but that if they begin a letter with ‘dear sir’, they will end with ‘your faithfully’. Experienced and well-educated people will not mix these formulas-and they tend to think poor of those who do. And, of course, it is not merely the beginnings and endings that are not mixed: the type of the grammatical construction and selection of words- the whole style- will tend to be different (and consistently so) in the type of letter.

It is true that many enlightened business firms have now give up the sillier, stiffer formalities that use to spoil commercial letter(expressions like ‘further to yours of the 23rd ult’): but a shapely sense of formality remains. The letter to or form a business firm or government department will now say (after the ‘dear sir’) something like ‘I n reply to you letter of 23rd June’ it will not begin with the informal and imprecise words, ‘thank you for your recent letter’, which are more suitable for one beginning with ‘dear Mr. Jones’. Needless to say, they are other expressions that are appropriate to other types of letters on the scale which runs from distant formality (especially in dealing with an organization, when personalities matter are kept in the background) to the completely familiar and intimate (where personalities matter as much as anything): ‘my dear frank, it was awfully nice to get your note the other day.’In each case, the experienced letter-writter