In Plain Engel-ish

Teaching poetic techniques is such a challenge. By college, most students know about “alliteration” and “assonance” and have filed that knowledge away in the “Never Ever Going To Use This” part of their brains. But they do perk up slightly when I remind them about Onomatopoeia, that Greek gulp of six syllables that simply means “a word that sounds like what it is naming.” I’ve always taken pleasure in “pitter-patter”, “boing”, “moo”, and “zap.” And who wouldn’t agree that “Listen to that steak SIZZLE on the grill” is perfect to our ear in a way that “Listen to that steak...

The best writing lets the reader know the point of the piece as early as possible. It frustrates me when I’m reading something without the vaguest idea why the author even bothered to put it down on paper. I remember once being in Toledo trying to find a particular bookstore in order to buy an obscure anthology. No, I’m sorry, it wasn’t Toledo — I was in Fort Lauderdale. But I just wrote “Toledo” because the anthology was about bullfighting in Toledo, Spain. Actually, my cousin lived in Toledo, Ohio, and I wish I had the graphic vocabulary to describe...

As a child, I was taught to use courteous terms such as “please” and “thank you.” But soon I happily discovered that “please” could be employed not only for courtesy but for enhanced begging: “Mom, I want some ice cream—Please!" If that failed, it became "PRETTY PLEEZE!!” And when all else failed, I brought out the biggest gun in my paltry arsenal of persuasion: “PRETTY PLEASE—WITH A CHERRY ON TOP!!!” On that rare occasion when my request was granted, Mom would create my favorite ice cream concoction: a sundae with two scoops of vanilla , hot fudge, whipped cream, and—yep,...

This morning I’d like to share with you the incredibly high-brow book that launched my lifetime love affair with reading when I was just a boy of eight. Yes, I’d really like to do that, but I also feel this burden about always being truthful with my readers. And so I might as well just admit that the book that first made me fall in love with literature was…was (come on Elliot, just spit it out)…The Tower Treasure, the first of the countless Hardy Boys Mystery Series by Franklin W. Dixon. There—now it’s out in the open, and I don’t...

Not all of the brilliant teachers who inspired me to become a professor taught English. I shall never forget the inspiration I received from a college teaching assistant of anatomy. And it all began with a photograph in “The Daily Student,” our university newspaper. The photo showed our student government president angrily raising his middle finger to a nationally known political figure who had come to campus to speak at an outdoor rally on the ongoing Vietnam War. It was quite the scandal to have captured our impulsive student body president rudely “giving the finger” to this renowned campus visitor...