:I agree wholeheartedly!! Let me clarify my gripe: In this society, there is
:lot of emphasis placed on good writing. There are good books that talk about
:the art of writing. I am not aware of a single book on this subject in Telugu.
But then, this is true of almost any subject -- not just good
writing. So, if you are at least partly basing your gripe on
the absence of good style books in telugu, you may be guilty
of drawing inferences where there are none. ( Not having any
publications that talk about writing style is not sufficient
to conclude that there is no emphasis on good writing. For
all we know, good writing style may be a hot topic on every
veranda in A.P. -- except on yours and mine. )
:Do you remember those telugu essay competitions? I won several prizes, not
:because of my writing abilities, but for the points I was making in those
:essays. But, that is not what essay writing is all about. It is about art of
:writing. Based on the education I received, I could only conclude that nobody
:knew it as an art form that should be emphasized. Whatever I learnt about
:writing, I learnt under the gentle tutelage of my PhD advisor.
You are absolutely right about the telugu essay competitions.
I once won the first place at the Anantapur district science
fair. The topic was something like: "role of science and technology
in rural development". my "essay" started with: "science and
technology is very important for rural development:" and went
on to list 20 points -- each point is numbered; is two lines long
and constituted a paragraph :-) Well, i digressed to describe my
past glory, but the question i have is: are these school level
competitions any better in U.S.A. or Germany or China? At the MPhil
or PhD level, I feel the standard of writing is same both here and
in AP.
:That may be dishonest writing, but still it can be good writing. Can a piece
:of prose be good, yet be prejudiced? Yes, I believe it is possible.
I disagree. If clarity is one of the hallmarks of good writing,
how can a piece of good prose mislead a reader? If the argument is
presented clearly enough, the reader immediately sees where the
writer is drawing wrong conclusions. So, a prejudiced writer would
NOT WANT to write good prose and good prose can not be prejudiced.
(Of course, here I ignored the case of ommitting facts. I hope
this was not the only case you had in mind, when you made the
above statement.)
Finally, a comment on the use of hyperbole. (I have had this
on my mind for a long time.) Should hyperbole have a role only
in fiction ? Doesn't it drastically limit the usage of hyperbole
and possibly make it extinct? Actually, I haven't heard hyperbole
in speech in a very long time and I am craving for it. Here is
a suggestion: How about allowing hyperbole in day to day usage? Next
time when someone says "This is the best coffee in the world", can
we just understand that he is using hyperbole to say that he likes the
coffee very much and continue? If we do that, may be we can
keep this very interesting "alankaaram" (ornament to the language)
alive.
regards,
- rao
p.s. please note that I have kept the lines short so that when Ramarao
Kanneganti indents them there won't be an overflow ;-)