Blog #3 Nixt
In a reading for another class, I came across this quote by
Thomas Jefferson:
“new
circumstances…call for new words, new phrases, and the transfer of old words to
new objects” (Kovesces, p. 37).
This immediately brought to mind the idea that different
writing forms require different formulas.
There are many innovations to use to stir the ideas to life within the
pre-writing stage. Just as there are many
paths through the stages of writing, revising, editing and so on. Even though Jefferson, in this book on American
English by Kovesces, is referring to the creation of new words for places,
people and things that the early settlers encountered, I felt that this quote
can serve this dual purpose of referencing writing stages and the many paths
toward writing.
New circumstances
can easily refer to writing something outside of the five-paragraph essay, or
different ways of preparing to write that include ‘wool-gathering’ or thinking,
blocking, chunking and talking about the topic with a peer in a formal way to
spurn clear thinking. These are all
different words for the work we put in in preparation of creating a finished
product. For many of us, at the least
for me, these terms, practices and even the philosophies behind them are new.
I like
new. I like to read a book for the first
time, or meet a new person at a social gathering – or I used to like to make a new
friend at a social gathering – I like to watch a TV show or a movie for the
first time. New is good. There will
always be a caveat when a blanket statement like that is made, and it is
this; I prefer to go to concerts where
the material is not all new to me. It inhibits my enjoyment of the event if I
don’t know a single song. But that’s
about it.
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