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Show 'mm Introduction seemed to hold: follow these rules, avoid these missteps, and you too can learn how to write. The debate on student and general illiteracy was already strong in the Fifties, and this ancient text with its brief prescriptions could possibly come to the rescue. Alas, it didn't work out that way. It was naive, and still is, to think that this book, or Ai dentally violates two of the book's rules: "Use figures of speech sparingly" and Tfm BATH Y "Avoid fancy words." This takes me to "Words and Expressions Commonly Misused," a chapter White has revised for this edition. Though he gives much good advice for avoiding vague or confusing words, he is cranky much of the time. White's prejudice is against newer words and shifts of meaning. Nauseous should not be used for nauseated; it means "sickening to contemplate." Most people would disagree. Transpire means to "become known," not to "hapany other, could do much to improve pen" or "come to pass." "Many writers so use it. . ." he says, "but their usage finds litwriting in an increasingly g culture. Moreover, it tle support in the Latin 'breathe across or isn't really a very good book. It's a hodge- through!" This is proof? Then there's cope. White says it's an podge of "rules of usage" (e.g., "Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding "intransitive verb used with with." But 's". . ."The number of the subject deterthat ignores the new use of the term: non-writin- g, non-readin- mines the number of the verb") and "How's he doing after the divorce?" "principles of composition" ("Use the "Oh, he's coping." To be sure, this active voice". . ."Avoid a succession of comes close to the dread psychobabble, loose sentences"). This is all good advice but it still expresses something unique but no better than that given by thou- and valuable as do many of the new sands of textbooks. jargon words, however irritating or overAnother flaw is a certain affectation, an used, such as closure, space, validation. archness, an occasional metaphorical turn Finally, there's the matter of hopefully. that is meant to be crisp but calls attention to itself in a way the book warns against doing: "There are occasions when obscurity serves a literary yearning, if not a literary purpose, and there are writers whose mien is more overcast than clear." Or, in a passage criticizing such business words as update and finalize: "Its portentous nouns and verbs invest ordinary events with high adventure; the executive walks among ink erasers, caparisoned like a knight. We should tolerate him every man of spirit wants to ride a white horse. The only question is whether his vocabulary is helpful to ordinary prose." The only question I have is whether this kind of prose is helpful to ordinary students. Each example suffers from a certain cuteness and inci (S OUT THE OTHER ( Continued from page 6) tour this November to talk about black holes. Dr. Kaufmann, astrophysicist and black hole expert, will arrive with films, slides, diagrams and "spectacular astronomical photographs," and it's all part of the Big Push for Disney's most expen- I 11NJLPU111 Wmi u 0 you buy for the only ones that your hifi system, absolutely require reliance on the f all the components manufacturer's performance and capability promises are the speakers. A listen- ing test in a dealer's demo room may give you a feeling of accomplishment, may act as a psychological crutch, but as a valid test its value is zilch. What you think you hear from a pair of speakers depends not only on the speak- ers, but also where they are positioned, your age and your sex. Even more important are the acoustic properties of your listening room. If you want to know what sort of sound your fi system is delivering, a pair of top quality headphones will give White: "To say, 'Hopefully I'll leave on the you an approximate idea, but even such a noon plane' is to talk nonsense. Do you test has its limitations since the mean you'll leave on the noon plane in a plus your ear cavity form a sort of hopeful frame of mind? Or do you mean resonating chamber, a room in miniature. Your hifi listening room always interyou hope you'll leave on the noon plane?" is faces with your speakers, forming an inSorry, but I think White willfully uncomprehending. We know perfectly well dissoluble partnership. What you actually that this means he hopes he'll leave on the hear is what is left over after your room noon plane. gets through with the sound. As far as fi For all its lightness and wit, The Elements sound is concerned, you are the last person in the hifi chain of events, low man on the in is whatever often sour of Style, edition, and wrongheaded. I don't deny that we sonic totem pole. can learn from it, but the book does not Several things take place in your listenhave enough to do with the language as it is ing room, and for openers we can consider actually used, and it has an offensive way of sound as existing in two categories. The first is dry sound, the sound that comes dicelebrating its own stuffiness. rectly from your speakers. Dry sound or Manfred Wolf direct sound is what a musician hears from head-pohon- Count de Monet in the French Revolution segment of Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I. Cloris Leachman will play Madame de Farge, Brooks himself will be a chamber pot valet (ah, toilet humor through the ages). but Universal is suddenly shy. The movie is now called Guyana, agree to distribute Mystery ... of the Century, and although the original dialogue was in English, the entire movie has been redubbed. (The stars, and we use the term loosely, are Stuart Whit- man, Gene Barry, John Ireland, Joseph Yvonne de Carlo and Bradford they'll do a concert number and Deborah Cotten, This sudden attack of cold feet Harry will do even more ... a featured Dillman.) that there are limits to Holrole. The star of this effort is Meat Loaf, may prove director is Alan (Welcome to L.A.) Rudolph. lywood's tastelessness. sive movie ever, The Black Hole, opening in Mick Jagger, Tatum O'Neal, Orson Welles Bantam Books is its paperDecember. and Jackie Gleason reportedly turned back version of the original Cruising novel down roles. This acting gig, by the way, will by Gerald Walker. Mere coincidence, further delay completion of Meat Loaf's swears Bantam, that the uproar over the awn long overdue album; it was scheduled for film version should so closely precede the release early this year and is nowhere near January publication date (book's been out Saturday Night Not Live: NBC is finished. of print since it first emerged in 1970). moving reruns of their late night silliness to prime time Wednesday, 10-- 1 1, thereby ROBERT RedforD'S first directorial effort, A FILM titled Chappaquiddick, using Ted fall to the Here from From Eternity ousting Ordinary People (from the best seller of a Kennedy's name, will allegedly be made by schedule. It will be optimistically titled The few years back) stars Mary Tyler Moore one Glenn Stensel, who claims it's all perBest of Saturday Night Live. and Donald Southerland. Cutter & Bone fectly OK, since, after all, Kennedy is a will star John Heard as Cutter, Jeff Bridges public figure and fair game. Stensel was The Marshall Tucker Band, once going to make a film about Billy South Carolina's contribution to as Bone, Lisa Eichhorn as Mo. Carter called Peanuts, but we were spared the deep-Sout- h boogie brigades, was rethat one. cently named Official Ambassadors to the the Exploiting Exploitive Winter Olympics. In exchange for their title, the lads are obliged to Some enterprising types put together a Good God; What Was Least g show for the U.S. cute little flick called Guyana, Crime of the a throw team and a f ree concert for the whole gang Century, and then even got Universal to Important? of competitors when they assemble next Farrah Fawcett fired her longtime winter at Lake Placid, New York. BLONDIE will APPEAR in the film Roadie; Spar-tansbur- g, high-faluti- n' fund-raisin- Will Michael Upham, designer of last month's Ampersand of the Casting Calls Monty Python's John Geese will play Month, please send us his address. We'd like to pay him, but the post office won't cooperate. manager and PR hotshot Jay Bernstein, who said in a trade interview after the axe that his work building Farrah into a worldwide star attraction was "the most important thing I've done in my life." es November, 1979 his instrument. This sound travels out into space, strikes walls, the floor, ceiling, chairs, rugs, furniture and people. Some of the sound bounces off, scattering in all directions. This reflected or reverberant sound is a sound source, just like your speakers. All the objects in your listening room reflect a certain amount of sound, but also absorb some of it, converting it to heat, while letting some of the sound pass through. An open window, excluding the frame and glass, does no sound absorbing, permitting sound to travel on through, unrestricted. Close the window and that pane of glass becomes a sound reflector. Offhand, it would seem that reflected sound, the reverberant sound, is the villain of the piece, yet consider that sound indoors is always more satisfying than the same sound heard at an outdoor concert. What our ears and our brains like to hear is a combination of direct and reverberant sound. Reverberant sound adds a certain richness and body to music it does not otherwise have. The amount and quality, of reverberant sound depends on the size of your listening room, its shape and the sound absorption properties of everything in that room. bu can have too much reverberation or not enough but there is no such thing as a proper amount and there are no rigid rules to which you must adhere. The kind of sound, the combination of direct and reverberant sound your speakers and your listening room produce and which you may enjoy is a subjective experience. If the reverberation isn't quite right for you personally, then your speakers will not sound right no matter what. The same speakers in a different listening environment may sound like the best you ever heard. Ideally, when listening to a composition you should get a mental image of the space in which it was performed. A symphony should give the impression of being played in a large hall; an organ in a cathedral and chamber music in an intimate room. There is no way in which your listening room, unaided, will do all these things for you. Reverberant sound can produce problems. Two sounds can augment or negate each other. Where they assist those frequencies sound louder; where they oppose they can become inaudible. These actions occur at various places in the room, so what you hear is determined by your speakers, their positioning, by the acoustics and by where you sit. The same is true when you attend a concert: what you hear depends on where you sit. If, at a live performance speech sounds muffled or some of the instrumental music sounds muddy, change your seat. Ditto at home. You can modify reverberant sound to some extent. You can make your room more lively, more reverberant, by removing materials which are notorious sound absorbers. You can put your speakers on stands, either homemade or of the storebought variety. This stops the reverberation of floorboards, which muddies up bass response, and gives treble tones better direction. The result: cleaner sound at both ends of the spectrum. An empty room with hard walls, closed windows, no curtains and with no one present but yourself will give maximum reverberant sound. This decreases as you add furniture, carpeting, people and open all the windows. Alternatively, you can add a time delay device to your fi system to add artificial reverb. If you do, use additional speakers at the sides and rear to supply reverberant sound only. Martin Clifford , |