[lbo-talk] Prose Style -- A Sample for Discussion

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

On 1/1/07, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> Prose Sample. I would like to know from some of the adherents of "clear
> prose" how clear or unclear the following sample is?

My impressions: Looks full of highbrow flourishes. Since all we have
is this excerpt, the part at the end about "authority of origins" is
kinda hilarious and mysterious, since it doesn't follow from the rest.

Except for the mysterious end part, my understanding is he's just
illustrating the difference between syntax and semantics. I got this
from skimming, which was much easier than a close reading.


The author goes on:

"But suppose that it is a DE-bunker rather than a 'Bunker', and a
debunker of the arche (or origin), an archie Debunker such as Nietzche
or Jacques Derrida, for instance, who asks the question 'What is the
Difference' --- and we cannot even tell from his grammar whether he
'really' wants to know 'what' difference is or is just telling us that
we shouldn't even try to find out.  Confronted with the question of
the difference between grammar and rhetoric, grammar allows us to ask
the question, but the sentence by means of which we ask it may deny
the very possibility of asking.  For what is the use of asking, I ask,
when we cannot even authoritatively decide whether a question asks or
doesn't ask?"


Tayssir