Friday, May 29, 2009

Stewart Pidd's Poor Be-Verbs Essay

Treana Penn
English 201b 10-12 M/w
Professor Sabir

Poor Be Verbs

The author of Stewart Pidd Hates English devote an entire section to verbs. Be verbs can not better one’s writing. Be verbs are words that combine subjects to other elements in a sentence. Be verbs are abstract (174). There are four common be-verb patterns; passive tense, expletives, passive voice and subject compliments. Authors should avoid repeating be verbs and use strong verbs creates clarity and economy. A passive voice should be used by writers for example when the receiver of the action is more important than the actor. You should get rid of the be verbs at the end of the revision process. According to Stewart Pidd’s essay “Pour Poor Porky” gives evidence by incorrectly using be verbs in the essay “Melville, the lead singer, is screaming,,,” I doubt the masters be verbs.
Pidd uses a subject complement instead of the active voice. He writes, “The death of Little Porky was Milton’s inspiration for the song ‘Too many Rats, Not Enough Cheeses’…” (1). Pidd uses the linking verb “was” and the subject complement “was” and the subject complement “his inspiration.” Pidd can replace this subject complement and the be verb with complement’s past tense verb form “inspired,” and revise the sentence to read, “The death of Little Porky inspired Milton to write the song ‘Too Many Rats, Not and Not Enough Cheese’….”
Pidd uses a subject of an expletive when he mentions the first time he hears the advertisement: “It is a Saturday when I hear the song…” (1). Pidd uses the pronoun “I” and the abstract be verb “near”. It is Pidd who can fix the error by rephrasing the sentence,
omitting the expletive structure “It is” and making the subordinating clause “when I hear” into an independent clause by removing the subordinating conjunction phrase. The revised
sentence will read, “I heard the song on Saturday….”
The progressive tense uses unnecessarily. He writes, “Melville, the Dogs’ lead singer, is screaming…” (1-2). The be verb ”is” and the present participle “screaming” Pidd uses. The be verb can be eliminated by replacing the present participle “ screaming” with its singular base form, “screams.” Pidd corrects the error by writing, “Melville, the Dogs lead singer screams….”
Passive voices uses unnecessarily by Pidd in the following quotation: “A mistake is
made by Melville…” (2). The phrase of the subject in sentence “A mistake,” but the sentence’s actor Melville. By fixing the error the be verb will be eliminated “is,” replacing the past participle “made” with its present-tense singular form “makes,” and making the object of the preposition, “by,” the subject. The sentence will revise to read, “Melville makes a mistake….
A be verb and a subject complement uses in place of an active verb: “Making a cool saying into a radio jingle is the personification of everything lame…” (2). The linking be verb “is” and the subject complement uses “the personification”. The subject complement and the be verb can be replaced with the complement’s verb form, “making a cool song.” The will read, “Making a cool song into a radio jingle personified everything lame….”
Benjamin Franklin’s quotation pertains to Pidd and his be-verb essay: “well done is better than said.” Through Stewart Pidd says he is a verb master he misuses his be verbs. Instead of Pidd using fancy talk, he should just write in his normal style. By using fancy talk Pidd will loose the point his essay. Pidd should do, rather than say, because it will create a
more understandable essay.

1 comment:

  1. How would this help Pidd create a more understandable essay?

    ReplyDelete