Synopses & Reviews
Like any other life-sustaining resource, says Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, language can be depleted, polluted, contaminated, eroded, and filled with artificial stimulants. Today more than ever, language needs to be rescued and restored. Drawing on a wide range of sources, both critical and literary, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies is an engaging address to everyone concerned with preserving the vitality and precision of the spoken and written word. / If every literate person in the United States read this book, the result could dramatically transform our society. . . . Written with modesty, keen insight, and grace, Marilyn Chandler McEntyres Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies proposes a revolution of human expression that would bring precision, honesty, and felicity to the spoken and written discourse of contemporary culture. This is a book to read and pass on with the fervent hope that its truth may spread and endure. Emory Elliott / Director of the Center for Ideas and Society / University of California, Riverside / McEntyres prose is lyrical, at times luminous. . . . Her thoughtful analyses of the written word invite all of us to read more deeply, and her discussion of how readers enter a text leads us to examine the architectural structure of our own work. Kathryn Reiss / Mills College author of Time Windows, PaperQuake, and Blackthorn Winter
Synopsis
The author offers 12 strategies of stewardship for those concerned with preserving the vitality and precision of the spoken and written word.
Synopsis
Like any other life-sustaining resource, says Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, language can be depleted, polluted, contaminated, eroded, and filled with artificial stimulants. Today more than ever, language needs to be rescued and restored. / McEntyre opens Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies with a sobering chapter on the current state of American public discourse. Pointing to the commercial and political forces that affect language use in American culture, McEntyre counters with twelve constructive strategies of stewardship such activities as challenging lies (even widely tolerated forms of deception and spin), practicing the art of conversation, and encouraging playfulness and prayerfulness in tending to the word. / Drawing on a wide range of sources, both critical and literary, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies is an engaging address to all thoughtful users of language concerned with preserving the vitality and precision of the spoken and written word.
Table of Contents
An introductory word to readers -- Why worry about words? -- Stewardship strategy #1 : love words -- Stewardship strategy #2 : tell the truth -- Stewardship strategy #3 : don't tolerate lies -- Stewardship strategy #4 : read well -- Stewardship strategy #5 : stay in conversation -- Stewardship strategy #6 : share stories -- Stewardship strategy #7 : love the long sentence -- Stewardship strategy #8 : practice poetry -- Stewardship strategy #9 : attend to translation -- Stewardship strategy #10 : play -- Stewardship strategy #11 : pray -- Stewardship strategy #12 : cherish silence.