Friends Old and New

 

Friends Old and New

This month I’ve been re-reading some of my favorite books, relishing other writers’ mastery of words. One of my most-loved books is an anthology of short stories by H. H. Munro, who wrote under the pen name of “Saki.” Sadly, he was killed in World War I at the age of 45. Here are two examples of his inventive mind at work. Who knows how much more he might have brought us had he lived.

·         “The people of Crete make more history than they can consume locally.”

·         “‘Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death,’ said Clovis.”

Then there’s Never Rub Bottoms With A Porcupine, an anthology published by the English magazine, the New Statesman. It’s a compilation of responses to the publication’s literary-style competitions, to which readers respond with sometimes brilliant imagination. One competition (repeated occasionally) requests imagined proverbs of “a self-evident nature.” Three examples:

·         “Gloves make a poor present for a man with no hands.”

·         “A bald man does not fear gray hair.”

·         “A knowledge of Sanskrit is of little use to a man trapped in a sewer.”

But I’ve read new material too, including a book by Roy Peter Clark: The Glamour of Grammar. He provided a colorful reminder to keep a sentence’s subject and verb as close together as possible: “The creation of meaning… requires a subject and a verb, the king and queen of comprehensibility. And the king and queen are most powerful when they sit on adjacent thrones rather than in separate castles far away.”

Especially memorable for me, however, was his example of a Twitter message he encountered: “There’s a dead squirrel in the driveway. Mrs Liebowitz is worried that the death might be gang related. She’s checking FOX News to be sure.”

Ah, the joys of reading.

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