The beginning of sense, not to say wisdom, is to realize that 'doing an action,' as used in philosophy, is a highly abstract expre...ssion--it is a stand-in used in the place of any (or almost any?) verb with a personal subject, in the same sort of way that 'thing' is a stand-in for any ... noun substantive, and 'quality' a stand-in for the adjective.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Without our being especially conscious of the transition, the word "parent" has gradually come to be used as much as a verb as a n...oun. Whereas we formerly thought mainly about "being a parent," we now find ourselves talking about learning how "to parent." . . . It suggests that we may now be concentrating on action rather than status, on what we do rather than what or who we are.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
OUR Latin books in motly row, Invite us to our task--... Gay Horace, stately Cicero: Yet there's one verb, when once we know, No higher skill we ask: This ranks all other lore above-- We've learned "'Amare' means 'to love'!"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One day the Nouns were clustered in the street. An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.... The Nouns were struck, moved, changed. The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One of the most important things, to my mind, in English style is word-order. For us, the most emphatic place in a clause or sente...nce is the end. This is the climax; and, during the momentary pause that follows, that last word continues, as it were, to reverberate in the reader's mind. It has, in fact, the last word. One should therefore think twice about what one puts at a sentence-end. But in a German sentence this final position may be reserved, by a most curious grammatical convention, for an infinitive or past participle; or, in a subordinate clause, for the main verb. Thus logical emphasis, unless particularly strong, tends to be sacrificed to mere grammar.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simpl...e, but nourishing to the imagination. Hold the philosophy, hold the adjectives, just give us a plain subject and verb and perhaps a wholesome, nonfattening adverb or two.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »