Welcome to Dr. V's grammar 300-2 class!
This is going to be a fun course. Let's jump in at the deep end right away: here's your first prompt, which will be homework for Wednesday, August 20th, in case we don't finish in class today - go to the following link
http://www.kristisiegel.com/engfish2.htm
Read the excerpt "The Poison Fish" from Ken Marcrorie's book Telling Writing.
It talks about ENGFISH, a common form of student writing AND textbook writing that you might have encountered already. This course is all about AVOIDING it!! Learning more about grammar and style will make us better writers and editors, which is beneficial for whatever career we are pursuing.
Your task: write a short blog comment about your personal experience with ENGFISH - are you maybe student teaching, and have seen it in your kids' writing? Or did you produce ENGFISH texts yourself in certain situations? Did you see it in textbooks? What do you think about the term? Does it work for you, or do you think it is inadequate? Better suggestions? Or do you perhaps have a funny example of ENGFISH you want to share? How can its use be avoided? How can you become a better writer?
Hint:
Your blog comment should be about as long as this entry -- if it's too long, people won't be thrilled to read it, and if it's too short, it can't contain very much insight. Consider this blog as a discussion board. You can offer your own stories, or react to your peers'. The only time you have to publish a longer article here is when it is your turn to summarize a chapter reading from our textbooks or articles I distribute.
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22 comments:
Perhaps I was missing something, but the entire point of this blog seemed to be an attack on the use of a vocabulary. The excerpts used were basic, and there were mistakes in the writing, but there seemed to be a general tone against the use of a lexicon that should be had by an English student. I'll admit it, I'm a nerd, and even in speech with my friends I'll use words that are far from the colloquial setting we may be in. I don't feel, though, that that is because that was what was expected of me in my English classes. I use those words because they are the correct words to use, and the meaning is far more potent than a more relaxed synonym. It shouldn't be an educator's goal to bring his students' writings down to a baser level, as this blog suggests, but rather it should be a goal on educating sentence structure, which once learned will allow language to flow naturally.
Until today, I had never heard anyone use the term "Engfish." I like what it means and I agree that a lot of people are used to this kind of English. I know that I have used Engfish for awhile now. I never really found my voice in writing, I always wrote about what I thought the teacher wanted to hear. I would use words that weren't me but I thought they would make me sound better in the teacher's eyes. I never really let a teacher know who I really am because I figured it wasn't good enough and my "everyday words" would just fail me since they didn't sound professional enough. I hope to one day break this curse and have a real voice, not just a voice that the teacher wants me to be.
I found it interesting that the professor was so upset by the students' usage of "Engfish." As a college professor he has most likely experienced numerous years of undergraduate and graduate schooling, and he too has learned to write "Engfish." Therefore, I would think that he would be just as warped when it came to writing English as his students. Instead he prefers the writings of a third grader to an intelligent college student. He is completely contradicting the accepted form of college writing and may hinder his students' in their future writing classes/jobs.
I believe that Engfish is a very dangerous enemy of writing. When I was in high school I had two different types of English teacher, one who was a textbook junkie and the other tried to find your true expressions through your writing.
I learned to write with my own feelings and not juice up a paper to make my teachers happy. Learning of the "Engfish" disappoints me because you lose yourself when writing to impress a teacher. There is no more of "you" in the paper only a falsely written paper designed to impress text books and teachers.
Find a true writer within yourself and express yourself through the words you want to use. This writing style is much easier and flows through the writer more fluently. Engfish writing is soulless and not heartfelt.
I found the teacher's reaction to the students use of "Engfish" interesting. They were only writing in the way they thought best. They were writing in the way their text book does. This article gives a very interesting view of how we look at English. It is true that when I go to write a paper I tend to use words that I wouldn't normally use in everyday conversation. I never thought of this the way that this article shows. It makes me wonder how I should write papers from now on. Should I write as I speak, how I was taught from English Text Books, or a mixture of the two?
Unfortunately, I think I've become a master at Engfish. Several times during my college career, I've found myself adding in words here and there because I think it's what my instructor expects from me in an assignment. I constantly find myself thinking, "What would be a good adjective to put in this sentence?".
My classroom observations have so far been limited to early elementary students, so I haven't yet had to witness Engfish among my students. I find the author's insights on third-grade writing to be true. At that age, kids are still writing to get their point across, not worrying about how the content is presented to the teacher. When kids are excited about what they are writing about, it shows. Their emotions come through in a way that seems to get lost as students get older.
I had never heard of Engfish before reading this article, but almost immediately I recognized it. The majority of textbooks I've read managed to sound very similar. Very few of them sounded natural, and it is always a pain to read them. I also know that I used to write like that when I was younger, much to my embarrassment. The examples of this kind of writing sound so stiff and unnatural.
The second example the article used was even worse in my opinion. The short, choppy sentences that contain little or no information was even more familiar. Last semester I student taught part time for a seventh and eighth grade grammar class. Every writing assignment I read in that class sounded just like the example. They could manage to write a whole page that contained no real information. Its writing for the sake of writing, rather than to convey meaning and purpose. I can see that
Engfish is a problem, but I can't really see what can be done to get rid of it.
I'm not entirely sure I agree with the idea that Engfish is unnatural in general conversations. I often use what my husband calls "big words" because they have been integrated into my vocabulary through not only the English classes I have taken over the years but also through extensive reading on my part. True primary students use basic language that is
both visually descriptive and literal but isn't that because that is how we teach them to talk from a very early age? We teach toddlers to say I am hungry. We don't teach them to say I would like something delicious to eat because my stomach is growling. We expand our vocabularies over the years through learning. Why not use what we learn?
Before reading this article i had never heard the term Engfish, but as I read the post I knew i was very familiar with it. It is the same style of writing that I use. I am probably using it right now. Engfish has become the style of writing I always use and never knew it was incorrect until now. In fact, I always thought that that style of writing made me sound smarter.
My writing style for school is very different from the style I use to talk to my friends. This is because schools spend so much time teaching students how to use write "correctly" and no time teaching them how to writing interesting. The education books we read talk to us in Engfish. After all this time learning how to write correctly, I am not sure how long it will take me to change it.
When my friends find out I am an English major, they almost always decide that I will be their go-to for research paper editing.
My boyfriend, Jordan, has me read just about every essay or paper he has to write. Jordan is incredibly intelligent, and his papers usually, for the most part, lack the basic grammatical errors. The problem I find most with his writing is that I have no idea what he is trying to say. He throws in as many advanced vocabulary words as he can. I have to reread some sentences three times before I can figure out a point. He is the perfect example of an Engfish writer.
I believe writing in Engfish is a problem that many of us have, including myself. We tend to over complicate our writing in an attempt to make ourselves sound more intelligent. The complication simply hides our true meanings.
I liked the point of the blog and I thought that someone finally put a name to what students had been doing for years. Time and time again I found myself looking through a dictionary while writing a paper and trying to fill it with big, important words that made my paper sound more interesting. I know that I am not alone in this when I say that many students write to what their teachers what to hear. Students get so locked up in writing for an "A" rather than writing what they mean. I do disagree though on that every big word in students writing is a form of "Engfish". I have met many people who have very large vocabularies and use them on regular day to day conversations.
I think a lot of schools have succumbed to the path of least resistance. It was apparent to me in high school that my teachers didn't care about what I had to say; they cared merely how I said it. This is exactly what Engfish holds important. We tend to mistake verbiage for good writing when it is more akin to a pointless waste of paper and ink. Many students (including myself) have been guilty of writing Engfish. However, the blame cannot fall fully on the student. Many teachers I've had don't know the difference between English and Engfish any more than the students they teach.
If we desire to point fingers, I think blame falls on what is taught in the classroom. We no longer teach the classics that show appropriate use of wordiness--that which uses each word for a purpose. Instead, we teach "modern classics" that fall into two categories: 1) overly simplified or 2) riddled with verbiage. We should reacquaint students with the classics that properly illustrate how to be wordy with a purpose.
This blog makes perfect sense. This blog speaks about bringing a story alive by using everyday words. So many times college students wait until the last minute to write papers until we mainly use our vocabulary skills to make the paper sound important. So we beat around the bush here and there use this word here that word there, and the paper becomes a bunch of information that has no feeling and no truth. I can totally understand this blog because I have been guilty of using Enfish.
I have not heard the term “Engfish” before. I totally understand where the author is coming from. I have done this personally through my school career, not only in high school but with college also. I like to think that I “found my writing voice” after Community College but I do still feel that I will chose words based on if I think it’s what I believe the teacher is looking for. I try to make my words and writing as proper as I feel necessary according to what I feel my teacher is expecting from my writing. I try to use more complicated words and constantly use a thesaurus while writing homework assignments. This article did help to open my eyes up because I am in the elementary education program so it will help to not expect this “Engfish” from my students in the future.
To become a teacher you must first travel the long student road. You must write paper after paper (dozens? a hundred or more?) until you can just think about a due date and feel that panic rising. Some essays and research papers become something you care for dearly and so you try. You might find some original ideas that excite you or even find an original voice to your argument. You might still care about it after you turn it in.
However, more often than not you will hate it. You will want to get it done and out of your way and you will hate your paper for that. It is for that kind of assignment that I find myself writing "Engfish." It may be something you do to please your teachers in the beginning, but when that deadline is hanging over your head it becomes a way to fill in that blank space.
"Engfish", I think, is a wonderfully creative term for something so pretentiously dull. I'm sad that I've not heard of it until today. (That's not to say that I didn't know that people in general don't use big words arbitrarily and pseudo-cleverness to impress others.)
I had an English professor at John A. Logan last semester. If I had known more about Engfish, I might have understood him a little better. He would often give papers a ridiculously low grade on the grounds that the student used "big words". I was always rather annoyed that he would punish someone with a vocabulary in this way. I guess he was just looking for instances of Engfish and WASN'T the jerk I thought he was...or maybe it was both.
It seems obvious to me that students use ENGFISH because they have been taught to use it. We were trained to write for the key audience, and that would mainly be teachers. There were interesting points to the article and I thought it was amusing that there were grammatical errors as well. The article seemed to be picking apart the way that we were taught to use grammar. I know that for papers and homework that I do use Engfish without even realizing it but when I write for my own benefit, i don't use engfish at all.
To be honest, I have never heard of the word Engfish before. When I first saw the word, I immediately knew that it had something to do with incorrect english. This "engfish" language seems like a way out of speaking standard english.Engfish sort of reminds me of text talk, but with longer words. I am guilty of using "engfish". I find myself all the time adding words, taking out words and making up words in sentences.I try to write in a way that I believe the teacher will accept. I wanted to sound more sophiscated. Hopefully, I will come to the realization the standard english is the key to a great paper.
People seem more worried about "prettying" up their writing to impress the instructor, instead of what should be of most importance--the point of the message. Unfortunately, the latter is often forgotten.
The passage of the kid writing about his first trip to downtown caught my eye because of his style; it irritates me. When he got there (downtown), he was astonished. No, really? Why? He was completely astonished by the "hustle and bustle." What's the purpose of having "bustle" in there? I'm not stupid--I understand what hustle means just fine, thank you. Two words: Spare me. I dislike writing cluttered with unnecessary words.
Since choosing to make English my major, I have become much more aware of just how diverse a subject English really is. In terms of this article and the topic of "Engfish," I would have to say I agree with much of what the author is conveying. It is true that students today do try and spice up their writing to try and impress a teacher or professor. Therefore, I sometimes feel we forget what English really is. English is about expressing yourself through writing. Whether you are responding to something you have read or simply writing creatively, you should write with a purpose other than to try and impress a professor. I'll admit however that "Engfish" was something I fell victim to, especially during my freshmen year. I was a new college student who wanted to try and impress his English teacher by using a vocabulary that I normally wouldn't use. At times I probably do still adhere to the "Engfish" way of writing, but have become much more conscious of trying to avoid it. This doesn't mean I want to write like a third grade student, but at the same time I want my words and writing to have meaning and passion.
Engfish, what can I say? Other than the fact that I am guilty of doing it a lot. I usually feel like the teacher is looking for a much smarter version of me. So I over do it with large words that I don't always know the meaning to. It's sad that students feel like this though. This article really broadened my perspective, because it's not even about the large words that you use. I always thought that my style of writing worked for me, but I think I'll have to reconsider it.
I have never heard of the term "Engfish" before. Although I understand the meaning, or concept of the word, I took some time to figure out if Engfish was using too much intelligence or not enough. It seems to me that students have been trained to use this method of writing not only to sound smarter, but to make a more lengthy paper. I'm not so sure I agree with Engfish because I think one should write with a level of intelligence or word knowledge they've acquired but not have to go above and beyond to find fancy words. I also think a natural voice should be heard, especially to make the direction in writing more specific, but again, using acquired knowledge. A lot of people talk and write in two different language styles, but some do not.
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