Monday, June 28, 2010

More things I don't know

I'm sort of getting the hang of this house stuff. Last night I vacuumed the stairs. Tonight I mowed the lawn. Let's all practice mass hypnosis and pretend I made a dent.

It occurred to me today I have no idea what the word "rhetoric" means. That should probably embarrass me, but it's never to late to learn, right? I found this site by Robert A. Harris with lots of definitions and examples. After reading for awhile, I ordered a used copy of his book.

Seems like I should have left high school or college with at least a rudimentary knowledge of what the word means. When I started reading about the different rhetorical devices it was like a light bulb came on. That's what's been missing: understanding, really understanding, the structure of sentences and the effect of stacking words together.

This is what I need to advance as a writer. Intuition only gets you so far.

1 comment:

MommaJen said...

A vacuumed upstairs AND a mowed lawn? That qualifies as a dent in my book! Of course, these days an empty kitchen sink counts as a dent (and no, the counter top is not included in "kitchen sink"). :)

Keep up the good work!