Reading Jacques Barzun (about intellectual activity) and came across a gem that could be appropriated by writers for when they asked, “Where do you get your story ideas?”

Answer: “Intestinal fiat.”

#writing #thinking #JacquesBarzun

“…a trans-action is what every ordinary use of language is, even ‘Ouch!’ As such, it entails a moral obligation to avoid misleading, puzzling, confusing, shocking, or annoying the recipient. But to spare another’s feelings, to keep from imposing a special effort of understanding, takes a previous effort on one’s part; and the burden lies on the one who solicits attention.”
#jacquesbarzun #language #writing 1/2

> ... one does not obtain "nature" by merely removing opposition, wise or unwise. Nor can we know what is inevitable until we have tried good and hard to stop it...
> The enemy is not illiteracy but incomplete literacy---and since shit implies pretension it justifies reproof. There is no defense against the depredations of the brash except vigilance and no quarter given..
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41205414
#DisIneterested NOT #UnInterested #JacquesBarzun #Writing #PetPeeves. I think of Tufte on M$'s PP.

> Language is not something we can disembody; it is an ethical as well as a mechanical entity, inextricably bound up in ourselves, our posiitions, and our relations with those around us.
https://archive.org/details/sim_fortune_1950-11_42_5
#FortuneMagazine's #1950 #LanguageOfBusiness article was quoted by #JacquesBarzun in "The Retort Circumstantial" in #TheAmericanScholar #PhiBetaKappa. It makes me think of machine-generated text, the recent #ChatGPT discussions

The truth is, when all is said & done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it
#JacquesBarzun

The truth is, when all is said & done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it
#JacquesBarzun

The truth is, when all is said & done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it
#JacquesBarzun