Tom Heehler

“Read the beginning of this book and let me know what you think of it,” said my spouse. The book was a gift to my spouse from his boss. He genuinely wanted my opinion of the book, but he also wanted my opinion about whether the gift was a veiled jab from his boss. Well, ex-boss.

I don’t have much to say about either issue. I put a lot of value on thinking about words and how to choose them and use them to mean what you say. Or maybe to mean what you mean through the medium of what you say because sometimes it’s more effective to mean something different from what you say.

So, the concept is fine, and the examples are okay, but this seems like a book for people who don’t read, or who only read Hollywood gossip magazines and self-help books. Because when one reads literature (in the sense of emotionally complex writing that requires a bit of effort from the reader), doesn’t one internalize the writing style of the author and it seeps into one’s own speaking/writing style like how I unintentionally start speaking in a vaguely Australian accent when I’m around people from Melbourne or with a bit of a twang when I’m hanging out with friends from Texas? No studying required, just the activation of mirror neurons or something.

My spouse argues that it’s useful even to readers of literature to have the nuances of the language pointed out, and perhaps my experience with accents is a point on his side of the argument.… (mer)