It’s our 50th segment!!!!!

Such an occasion calls for a special column. Today, we write poorly on purpose!

We’ve been saying throughout that good writing — whether in your corporation, to your retail customers, for your local newspaper, or for the New York Times bestseller list — isn’t just about proper grammar. Good writing is about clarity and impact. About avoiding clichés and redundancies and passive writing. About throwing out unnecessary words. About not being a cowardly writer.

The legendary authors all knew that. They wrote bravely. And the world is better for it.

So we’ve taken the opening lines — and one closing line — from classic stories and rewritten them in ways that likely would have earned us a nice form letter from a publisher. Try to guess the work. Do it on a dark and stormy night!

1. “An elderly fishing professional who operated as a sole proprietor in a small vessel on the open ocean began to develop feelings of frustration because a total of two months, three weeks and a day had elapsed during which he had had no success.”

   “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.” — Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea

2. “Upon my birth, my parents found in the Old Testament an appellation to assign me for my Christian name, and you of course are welcome to greet me in that manner.”

   “Call me Ishmael.” — Herman Melville: Moby Dick

3. “My business partner had passed away. That conclusion is not in dispute. His interment was authenticated by a religious official, a clerk, a funeral home representative, and the acquaintance who participated in the most substantial grief process.“

   “Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.” — Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol

4. “I will allow as how I have experienced anxiety, and those symptoms are ongoing. However, I would dispute a finding that I suffer from mental illness.”

   “TRUE! – nervous – very, very nervous I am and had been and am; but why will you say I am mad?” — Edgar Allen Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart

5. “It's possible you became acquainted with my reputation after perusing a volume that described journeys and escapades undergone by a colleague. In any event, it bears no consequence.”

   “You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter." -- Mark Twain: Huck Finn

6. “The era had resulted in the most positive of outcomes. But, paradoxically, it also had been the most unpleasant period.”

   “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." -- Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities.

7. “Each young person eventually achieves maturity, with one exception.”

   “All children, except one, grow up.” — J.M. Barrie: Peter Pan

8. “The events did occur, albeit perhaps not the exact way described.”

   “All this happened, more or less.” — Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse Five

9. “Familial units find amity mostly in similar manners, but each family suffering from strife falls into that situation via its own path.”

   “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” — Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina

10. “I found great enjoyment in incineration.”

    “It was a pleasure to burn.” — Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451

11. “He powered off the room’s illumination and entered my brother's sleeping area. He would remain for the duration of the evening, and would be present the following morning when my brother rose from his sleep.”

    “He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.” — Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/aGClV8-CmEE

Next time: Maybe, maybe, maybe

From the mailbag: Our Nov. 20, 2022, segment on bad TV, specifically our discussion of the butchering of “breaking news,” prompted loyal reader David Barak to write, “I really hope that someday a TV weatherperson announces a newly-developed powerful storm as ‘breaking wind.’" We’d like to see that, too.

Readers: "Something Went Horribly Wrong," features samples of bad writing we see nearly every day. You can participate! Be our duly deputized “grammar police:” Your motto: “To protect and correct.” Send in your photos of store signs, street signs, newspaper headlines, tweets, and so on. It doesn’t have to be a grammatical error. It can be just what we call “cowardly writing.” Include your name and home town so we properly can credit you. You're free to add a comment, although we reserve the right to edit or omit. Now get out there! Send to Eliot@eliotkleinberg.com

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