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University of Southern
California |
The University of Southern
Californias legendary Trojans have won 24 state football championshipsmore
than those of all other California colleges combined. Its grateful
alumni give more money to their beloved school than do the graduates
of Stanford, Berkeley, or any other California college.
By the way, some people
confuse UC and USC. In California, UC means the taxpayer-supported
university whose flagship is Berkeley; USC is the private institution
in downtown Los Angeles.
The social and economic
advantages of a USC degree, with its instantly recognizable name
and loyal alumni, are considerable. Youthful USC students praise
its congenial dormitory life and aging graduates recall their years
there with great fondness. After all, who wouldnt appreciate lifelong
friendships, four sun-drenched years rubbing shoulders with the
rich and famous, and the thrill of cheering on the best athletes
in California?
For example, one former
Improve Your English student from Palo Alto writes, People
are warm and friendly here at USC. She describes meeting a
friend from UC Berkeley on campus. A USC student invited them to
share a table and another volunteered to take a picture of the pair
on the beautiful campus with classy brick buildings in the background.
Steven Shee, a product
of USCs well-regarded Marshall School of Business, calls USCs
alumni program robust, noting that Hewlett Packard has
an internal Trojan network of its own. The last time I attended
an event, the dean of the business school was among those who took
a road trip before the Stanford game.
Shee, an Improve Your
English parent, says he makes two or three business and social contacts
a year from the alumni database.
The Trojans helping
Trojans program illustrates not only the bond between alumni
and students across generations but also the potential benefits
of attending a school to which Californias wealthiest families
have been sending their children since 1880.
USC has striven in recent
years to diversify its wealthy student body. The campus now leads
the state in the number of Pell Grants offered to low- and moderate-income
students, who now make up one-fifth of the enrollment.
Make no mistake, however;
another one-fifth are SCionslegacy admissions with family ties.
Members of the USC family
are proud of their sports teams, and they should be. In addition
to completely dominating California football, USCs men and
women student athletes have won more individual championships than
has any other college in the United States. And the school has trained
362 Olympians, who have brought 236 gold, silver, and bronze medals
back to California.
USC can also take pride
in its above-average academic programs. USC is particularly strong
in practical and applied disciplines: journalism, business, film,
and many others. USCs engineering program is one of the top ten
in the entire nation.
Of special interest to
the editors of this newsletter is that the college offers a masters
degree in professional writingthe only such degree in the state.
As with any MFA program, students advance their creative skills
with the help of award-winning writers such as T.C. Boyle. But at
USC they also learn and practice the skills necessary for any serious
writer who plans to make a living with a word processor.
Characteristically, its
Viterbi School of Engineering takes its name from alumnus Andrew
Viterbi, whose $52 million gift pays for top experimental equipment
and some of the best and highest-paid faculty. Helped by another
$85 million in donations, the school has reinvented itself in this
century to lead most of the nation in engineering research.
Fueled by the generosity
of ex-Trojans, USCs graduate engineering department trails only
Stanford, Berkeley, and CalTech among California colleges.
Nine billionaires call
USC their alma mater.
One, filmmaker George
Lucas, single-handedly spurred the rapid growth of the USC film
school with an eye-popping $175 million gift.
Students
say that USCs friendly and informal lifestyle dissolves social
barriers. Nearly every student takes part in the rich social life
of the campus.
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Strunk and Whites
Rule #3
Part One
by Steve High
In 1920, William
Strunk boasted that he had reduced the number of punctuation
rules from a score or more to fourthree for the
comma and one for the semicolon.
Rule 3, Enclose
Parenthetic Expressions with Commas, epitomizes his
largely successful effort to inscribe the rules of grammar
on the head of pin, as E.B. White wrote.
One of the biggest
takeaways from Rule 3 is the use of two commas or no commas,
but never one:
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Well, Susan,
this is a fine mess you are in. (Two commas)
Sheriff Pat
Garrett
(No commas)
Ill sing
you a true song of Billy, the Kid. (Never)
Marjories
husband, Colonel Nelson, paid us a visit yesterday.
(Two commas)
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Strunk, a onetime
math teacher, may have remembered the algebraic prohibition
against unbalanced parentheses. In sentence diagrams, you
surround appositives with parentheses, just as in sentences
you usually surround them with commas.
Next month, in Part Two, youll learn more about punctuating
which and that in restrictive and nonrestrictive
clauses.
For
answers to specific writing questions, email us here.
Who
knows? Your question may
inspire our next article on Writing
Tips.
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Disinterested
vs. Uninterested
Whats the difference
between a senator who is bored with a debate and a senator
who observes the debate objectively, trying to learn the truth?
The English language has two words to capture these two states
of mind: uninterested and disinterested.
Use uninterested
to mean not caring for the issue at hand.
EX: |
We tried
to make our kids excited about visiting Stockton, but
they remained uninterested.
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Use disinterested
to mean objective, free from personal bias.
EX: |
I didnt
consult my friends because I wanted advice from a disinterested
party. |
We can see how these different meanings arise by examining
the prefixes un- and dis-.
Un- means not, as in ungrateful
(not grateful), unfortunate (not fortunate),
or uneducated (not educated).
On the other hand, dis- carries a variety of meanings.
It can mean not (disagreeing means not
agreeing), but it can also mean away or apart.
For instance, if my thoughts are disjointed, the joints
that should connect my ideas are broken apart.
Its true that
according to the dictionary, both uninterested and
disinterested can mean not caring for the issue
at hand. However, this definition of disinterested
is secondary. To take advantage of the resources of the English
language, youll want to preserve the distinction between
the two.
For
answers to specific writing questions, email us here.
Who knows? Your question may inspire our next article on The
Right Word.
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Jane
Austens Pride
and Prejudice
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Nat
Crawford,
director of tutoring
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by Nat Crawford
Pride and
Prejudice is a collection of good humor, charming
wit, devastating satire, and serious moral reflection. A portrait
of upper-class British society at the turn of the 19th century,
the novel depicts characters familiar to many societies today.
Readers willing to take the time to understand Austens language
will discover in this work one of the funniest and most enjoyable
comedies ever written.
American audiences,
their appreciation for humor dulled by slapstick comedy, often
fail to grasp Austens subtle satire. The author has
a gift for understatement: Mr.
Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature
had been but little assisted by education or society.
In another passage, she undercuts the genteel patronizing
of Lady Catherine and her daughter, members of the English
aristocracy: When
they parted, Lady Catherine, with great condescension, wished
them a good journey, and invited them to come to Hunsford
again next year; and Miss de Bourgh exerted herself so far
as to curtsey and hold out her hand to both. Austens
skill at the subtle putdown recalls John Drydens praise
of satire over mere name-calling: How easy is it to
call Rogue and Villain, and that wittily! But how hard to
make a Man appear a Fool, a Blockhead, or a Knave, without
using any of those opprobrious terms!
There is still
a vast difference betwixt the slovenly Butchering of a Man,
and the fineness of a stroke that separates the Head from
the Body and leaves it standing in its place. In Pride
and Prejudice, Austen leaves a fine row of decapitated
heads resting neatly atop bodies.
From time to time,
though, Austen shows that she can sling a handful of mud,
sweetly scented though it may be. Elizabeth can hold her own
against Lady Catherines hauteur: And
is this all? cried Elizabeth. I expected at least
that the pigs were got into the garden, and here is nothing
but Lady Catherine and her daughter. Austen also
dips her pen in caustic ink when having Mr. Bennet sum up
Mr. Collins: Mr.
Bennets expectations were fully answered. His cousin
was as absurd as he had hoped. At other moments,
Austen is witheringly succinct, as when she describes the
company at a card game as superlatively
stupid.
Austen shifts easily
from the absurdities of characters to the absurdities of their
actions. The development of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcys relationship
takes nearly the whole of the novel; that of the buffoon Mr.
Collins and the kind but mousy Charlotte Lucas takes all of
several minutes:
Miss
Lucas perceived [Mr. Collins] from an upper window as he
walked toward the house, and instantly set out to meet him
accidentally in the lane. But little had she dared to hope
that so much love and eloquence awaited her there.
In
as short a time as Mr. Collinss long speeches would
allow, everything was settled between them to the satisfaction
of both.
Here, Austen delightfully
combines the absurdities both of accidental intention and of long speeches on a forgone conclusion. For more such
scenes, read nearly any chapter of the novel.
Though she writes
with humor, Austen does not merely mock idiots and poke good-humored
fun at foolishness; she also encourages self-reflection and
reform. Austen initially called the novel First Impressions
because her hero and heroine, Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet,
must seriously rethink their initial impressions of each other.
Each begins the novel as a critical observer of the human
conditionDarcy scornfully, Elizabeth with more lightness
of heartbut turns that criticism toward the self. A
letter from Darcy forces Elizabeth to rethink her opinion
of herself: How
despicably I have acted! she cried; I, who have
prided myself on my discernment
and gratified my vanity
in useless or blameable mistrust!
Till this moment
I never knew myself. Later, Darcy reveals
how Elizabeths criticism forced him to change: my
behaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof.
I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your
ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been
attended to. The best criticism of society, suggests
Austen, comes from people unafraid to occasionally criticize
themselves.
When first reading
Pride and Prejudice, readers may find it helpfulto
know how Austen intends us to regard her characters. Modern
readers will find them familiar. Elizabeths sisters
Kitty and Lydia prattle away like unrestrained teenagers of
the modern day, their speech touched with slang and grammatical
error, their minds occupied with gossip, boyfriends, and hopes
of outshining their sisters. Mary, another sister, resembles
the modern striver obsessed with adding lines to a college
resume: she glibly recites words copied from essays (rather
than undertaking the cut and thrust of real conversation),
and she eagerly shows off her meager musical talents to uninterested
company.
Even Mrs. Bennets
obsession with marriage should appear familiar, viewed in
the right light. Today, as the feminist movement has dissolved
the old norms for personal relationships, young women are
nearly as free as men to develop independence and find worldly
success. In such a climate, its easy to laugh at Mrs.
Bennets obsession with finding the right husbands for
her daughters. But great literature outlasts its immediate
circumstances; substitute college for marriage
and Mrs. Bennets obsession becomes contemporary. Marriage
was indeed to Austens society what college is to our
own: a promise of financial stability and social prestige,
an apparent confirmation that the parents had raised their
children right. When Mrs. Bennet and Charlotte
Lucas discuss the dancing partners of their daughters at the
previous nights ball (Chapter
5), its easy to picture two mothers discussing their
childrens prospects for Princeton or Yale.
For this society,
Austen creates two types of heroines. Jane is the conventional
heroine who might appear in an 18th-century guidebook entitled
How to Get into Marriage: Five Steps to Landing the Household
of Your Dreams. A kind, gentle daughter who correctly
follows the rules of her society, she eventually achieves
success as her society defines it. But while no reader has
ever begrudged Jane her happiness, her story would hardly
be worth rereading centuries later. Fortunately, Austen created
a second heroine to keep the pages turning. Elizabeth, possessing
something
more of quickness than her sisters, has decided
that marriage should unite hands, minds, and spirits; she
demands a husband who will respect her and receive her respect.
But she has a long
road to travel before she finds him, far closer to hand than
she could ever have suspected. Its a road worth walking with
her, even if you have already seen one of the many movie versions.
For while the love story of Pride and Prejudice translates
well to the screen, no movie script will make you laugh the
way Austens words do.
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