Style & Narration
Style as a Toy
When we were children we liked words simply for the way they sounded, without knowing the meaning of what we were saying. Then we learned grammar and forgot all about our enjoyment in word sounds. Grammar school writing does not allow for music, concerned mostly with rules and regulations. To rise above that kind of bland writing that made us hate writing in the first place, we must return to those earlier days where we enjoyed language for the sake of it.
Consider:
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe. (Lewis Carroll)
Granted, it’s a poem. And poetry comes much closer to music than most term papers. But why can’t a research paper be like that? Why can’t the writer (and reader) enjoy the words by the music that they make? It can be cleverly done.
