Also "utter contempt" cannot be emboldened. People can be emboldened, abstract concepts cannot be.

Edit: If he wanted to stick with that phrasing, he wants encouragement or incitement. Wouldn't surprise me at all if he got embolden by looking up encourage in a thesaurus. It's one of the entries.

Also, in trying to decide if it should be "encouraging" or "encouragement" I realised his tenses are inconsistent. It's "championing..." and "mandating..." but then "the emboldening of" rather than just "emboldening". I'm not formally trained in grammar so I don't know what the names of those different ways of phrasing are, but they should be consistent. The reason for the inconsistency is that just "emboldening utter contempt" reveals even more starkly that you can't use "emboldening" that way.

I didn't know whether he was going for meddlesome or nettlesome, but this kind of inflated prose is typical.

Using a thesaurus would be beneath him.

I hadn't considered nettlesome, mostly because I forgot that it's a word that exists. I'd say he did mean that. Makes the most sense.

I believe he was going for meddlesome.

The rest of the sentence bothers me more, though.

There's a lot wrong with it. I'd say the word misuses are the most jarring to me.

Irksome is a better fit than jarring but that is probably a personal choice. And to sooth any jarring note from the above discussion of poor grammar and word choice skills, I will suggest listening to some Mendelssohn.

You are welcome.

I don't think a thesaurus would be a good idea, it might lead to more howlers. I'm going to recommend he use a dictionary. Webster's Second might be a good start.

Soothe fits better than sooth.

Lol

Forsooth phat, you are correct. Thanks. I despise the extra work of typing the extraneous e that adds nothing that context doesn't already make clear. I'm part Chinese you know. 🙄 Also see my edit.

After Dom posted a sentence from one of his students, I thought I would post this opening paragraphfrom one of my students at community college written a few years ago. The assignment was to write about a work of art important to you. This assignment was to be part of a memoir.

The House That I Loved


It was the chimneys which first caught my eye I don’t know how long ago back when I only knew it was in Providence and had no idea where Angell Street ran within the city’s limits. Before night and day trips down Thayer, Wickenden, and Hope, I knew that somewhere within the vast interwoven system of one ways that make up Providence was “the house that I loved.” Granted, I loved many houses in Providence and still do, but this wasn’t a house I loved, this was the house I loved. The distinction was clear; it was a cut above the rest, and for one simple reason: I had never seen anything quite like it before. Within this city it was unique, and therefore, completely new to me. Providence had shown me high Victorians, Tudor Revivals, English row houses, Gothic cathedrals, even, a castle, but nestled amongst them all looking at once impossibly out of place and perfectly at home, was of all things, a miniature French château, with tall, brittle looking chimneys reaching through the sky.

Talent.

Aside from a few easily-fixed issues with punctuation and grammar, this isn't bad.

In addition to finding the sentence overloaded, I dislike "emboldening" (though a web search tells me that it is not a neologism).

"Overloaded" is apt.

Maybe someday you could post a sample from one of the best writers in these same classes. I'm interested in seeing the range that you're working with here.

She was one of the best writers in the class. I believe she went on to receive an M.A. Except for not quite hearing where commas belong for parenthetical elements, she gets just about everything correct.

I did have a couple writers over the years, though, who were truly great. I haven't taught writing in over seven years, and, unfortunately, I have few copies left.

For anyone who hasn't been in a hurricane, this is how it goes:

For 2 weeks before it hits, you get a huge cloud with occasional torrents of rain.

For the week before, you get a "light drizzle," which roughly translates to what anyone else calls "flood weather."

For a day, you get wtf winds, followed by flooding, then you get crappy "drizzle" for the next week.

While it isn't perpetual, it's not like you are outside splashing in the pool and soaking up rays the day (or week) after a hurricane.

The writer just doesn't know how to start her idea, but once she's in her rhythm, it's not too bad.

Somewhere within the vast interwoven system of one ways streets of Providence was “the house I loved.” Granted, I loved many houses in Providence and still do, but this wasn’t a house I loved, this was the house I loved.

It was a cut above the rest, and for one simple reason: unlike anything I've seen before. Within this city it was unique, completely new to me. Providence had shown me high Victorians, Tudor Revivals, English row houses, Gothic cathedrals and even a castle.

Looking impossibly out of place yet perfectly at home, was a lone miniature French château, with tall, brittle looking chimneys reaching through the sky.

After removing the extraneous content, the word choices could be better. If I wrote this, it would probably be this:

"Among the castles, Victorians, Tudor Revivals, and English row houses of Providence, Rhode Island, there stands a lonely French chateau..."

Dave,

Normally, I hate beginning with "It was . . . ."
But I think it works here. I liked the way she led up to what she was writing about. Also, she wisely refrains from telling us when she first noticed that house. The opening refuses to state exactly, and I think that accomplishes the feel of a memoir.

I finally thought of a good mnemonic for the spelling of 'separate': a karate chop separates the board. I had a teacher in high school tell me that the R separates the two A's. I said, well, the p could seperate the two Es.

If mnemonics are a good topic for this thread, let's hear them.

The one my grade school teacher used was dumb but simple, if you were near a rat you'd probably want to separate yourself from it. (No offense to rat aficionados, I hear they make great if short-lived pets.)

lol I did the rat one, too

The only mnemonic I remember is "You connect, I cut."