by Byron Hoot

“Oh, just one or two more things about writing. . . . “

We have all survived our English classes  —  elementary, middle, high school. . . some  of us college.  Many taught by the best intentioned people, teachers we ever had.  Because they knew if we could not communicate, could not write clearly we’d encounter problems from our relationships to our employment.

And yet there were two things not taught.

These things I learned years after my comp classes but from my comp prof, Art Seamans, who wrestled with and continues to wrestle with the Poseidon nature of language.  He ultimately forced the two blessings which follow.

Simple though far-reaching.

The first is this.  Every communication situation, spoken or written, has this dichotomy  — chaos and order, ignorance and knowledge, the  unknown and the known.  Problem – solution.

Every speaker, every writer from the most common conversation to the most elaborate argument addresses a problem for which they  have a solution.

I know something you don’t and I want you to know what I do.  Across the board of spoken and written language.  In every form possible.

Two.  

All communication – spoken or written – is persuasive.  How else is agreement going to come about?  Or disagreement for a greater, better agreement unless we are or are not convinced?  Persuaded.

Of course they’re closely related!  How could they not be?

Then everything you learned regarding technique and form, the rules of language become allies and not enemies and that thing called writing may just start to make sense.