PROPOSAL:
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> I would like to see what kind of style books exist for an average subbarao to
> pick up good writing.
(diggression: BTW I learnt the other day that "rao" was a portugese
mistake of raya, the kannada kings -- Nunitz made this mistake; so,
you may want to pick another name for typical telugu name, like, "kumar").
First, I am not sure I can ask people to learn good writing by reading
style books (the only book I remember being good was by stunk and white
(or, something like
that). These books tend to be either very terse/syntactic or pretty boring.
My approach has been to write, write and get corrected; and by reading good
writing. I have not found style books very helpful at all.
>Here is a proposal: How about we put together a list of English books that we
>like that talk about writing? ...... If you are
>interested, we can flush out the details.
I like the goal, but not quite the way to go about it. For, perhaps my
experience biased me. See if the difference between the processes (yours
and mine) is that much different, or if we can not converge. If so, I am
game.
I think the best way to learn writing style was to read good writing, and then
practice, practice. and get corrected by good writers, ... Style books are
of very very limited help (for me).
I took up TAing a theory course and writing proofs for every homework
and distributing it to others as a way to gain practice. I don't know if
writing mathematical material improves one's writing in general, but
it did for me. For, I was forced to think in terms of "definition, lemma
definition,...".
I used to think that if you can't understand my writing, you are stupid
(and I used to feel good about it) until one senior Ph.D. student convinced me
over months how important it is to communicate. It took me over 2 years of
practice (this is probably one good side-effect of conference publications,
and journal publications) to get to a point where I felt somewhat confident.
So, I think the only modification I would make is, how'bout putting together
some book about good writing VIA EXAMPLES? Rather than mere dos and dont's?
And, the examples could be short, or long. or, sketchy. Could be mathematics
or history or what-have-you? I'd incorporate NEGATIVE EXAMPLES as well; this
can be *my* contribution.
(digression:
Actually, I am currently practicing it with a child-prodigy: palana's second
son, for my article on Hampi-history that I am planning to write in
multimedia. This kid of Palana (if it works out,
I will kidnap him one day, and adopt urgently) is an amazing pidugu.)
Now, if this is along the lines you have in mind (with several modifications
I am sure, along the way), the following is a list of books I can think of:
1. Azad's India Wins freedom
2. Gurajada's PREFACE to kanyasulkam
3. Telugu Medium book(s)? for intermediate?
4. The blind watchmaker (this is an exceptionally well writtne book)
Yes, we can flush the details out later. I think we can take this offline.
> I only request that before we make sweeping remarks on writing styles,
> we should be a bit more careful. Whether it is cinare, arudra, jandhyala,
>I am not clear why one should be careful there. I mean, I don't get the
>point. I can understand if you don't want us to make sweeping remarks without
>substantial support -- is that what you mean?
Yes.
TELUGINGLISH:
> I think that the death of Telugu is all right. In any case, Telugu has
> died many times. It rejuvenated in a different form over the centuries. I am
> sure, a Tenglish or Hilugu will live. Is that so bad?
No. it is not. The death you see this time will be more severe though. I can
understand Nannaya's telugu pretty well with no dictionary. Or potana's.But, this
time it won't be that way. Most of us talk in English, communicate in English,
think in English, not because we love Telugu less, but because, it is just
too difficult to do it in telugu after years of practice in English. English
comes 10 times more naturally than Telugu. I still remember the days when
I used to think in telugu and translate into English. Now, I do almost the
otherway around, for SERIOUS articles in telugu. Out of touch. Thus, telugu
is dead as a "language of thought" for many educated people.perhaps not all.
If nannaya comes now, he can not understand my language of thought! it is
completely English. Even worse: if nannaya comes now, he can not understand
the telugu culture much. But, if he came 100 years ago, he would have understood
it pretty well, enjoyed Chinnaya, Kandukuri, ...
If he comes back after 50 years, I bet, he would find hardly any
telugu.
Why, in vizag, a non-metro-city, my wife had no problem understanding
the ads, the general go-about-ing... And she knows less telugu than I know,
oh, say, greek? And, 10 years from now, the new telugu will be more English.
The new telugu will be written in roman characters (e.g. turkish),
spoken like an English dialect, and people will know more about western
culture than ours, ruins of Hampi/beluru/etc. will be completely smashed,
perhaps under a shopping mall, and people in general adopt western style.
SO WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT? Nothing.
We will be a different people, born out,like a phoenix, of telugu-ash.
Now, here is a question for you: WHY SHOULD WE CARE FOR OUR CULTURE/history?
I have a real hard time coming up with a rational (un-emotional) answer.
This is where the crux lies: can we change incrementally, while adopting the
language for modern needs, or, are we up for a drastic change.
I argue that our cultures, languages and vesha-bhashalu are up for drastic
drastic change. Whether we like or not.
All I am wondering is if we can
even be the chroniclers of the dying/changing culture/language ? I'd like to.
Just like preparing a fossil for the future!
Kumar.