@StoneyB hello

could you take a look at this sentence

I found this in a book. "I did not want another job interview to inflict a whip to my pride by how much I had become useless. "

Is this a grammatical sentence?

@user8153 No, there are errors of both idiom and grammar. 1) IDIOM: We say "inflict X on Y", not "to". 2) IDIOM: We do not "inflict" a whip; one "inflicts" pain or a burden or an injury, but a whip is an instrument. 3) IDIOM/GRAMMAR: The string following by confuses two uses of that preposition. a) By how much (like by 10% or by $50) expresses a degree of change or difference; it means approximately to what extent ...

... but there is no quantity or value to which a phrase with that meaning can apply. What is clearly intended is b) by VERBing..., expressing the method or means which the previous action employed; here, for instance, something like by demonstrating how ... is what is wanted. 4) GRAMMAR: How much is not used with non-quantity adjectives like useless; we do not say "I am much useless" but "I am very useless". ...

What the author presumably means is "I did not want another job interview to apply a whip to my pride by demonstrating how useless I had become."

@StoneyB So even though this is from a native author, he is an immature writer?

Incidentally, I've just noticed where we are. This should probably have been posted in the main chatroom. Little "ad hoc" rooms like this one are usually intended for conversations on a particular topic and are eventually allowed to disappear after they are dormant for a long time. Not a problem; but among other things, if you post in the main room you may get more informative responses from many people.

@user8153 "Immature?" --possibly. I'd say "incompetent"! He is trying to work in a formal register he has not yet mastered. For many native speakers formal writing is practically a foreign language.

Where did you find this?

I see. From a short piece at a library. I just wrote it down because it didn't make sense.

What is the most comprehensive dictionary you have? I want the best dictionary.

@StoneyB What dictionary do you have?

What do you read?

From what books have you received the most linguistic inspiration?

I rarely consult dictionaries of contemporary English except to find brief definitions to quote on ELL, and then I go to multiple dictionaries: most often Oxford Dictionaries Online, Cambridge Dictionaries Online, Collins and Merriam-Webster. For other purposes I use the Oxford English Dictionary, a historical dictionary. I own the original edition, published between 1888 and 1928, and the 1979? Supplement. ...

The latest edition is available only online, and is constantly updated, but I cannot afford the subscription.

That one! Where did you get it? I have been trying to find that thick dictionary that comes even with a monocole.

What do I read? Practically anything, though far less than I used to; I have little time between my job and my work here at ELL. Right now I am reading a monograph on Conditional Constructions, a metacritical study of contemporary literary theory, and a novel by Zora Thurston.

@StoneyB I see. Who do you think is the best writer from a linguistic point of view? Harthorne? Pope? Byron?Twain?

My father, who was an English professor, gave me OED 1 (the original edition) as a birthday present, and a friend gave me the Supplement. It is available online; there is a link on Meta.ELL. Hang on a minute and I will find you the link.

Thank you

@StoneyB Thank you. Is it really true that native speakers understand every sentence in a novel?

@user8153 I read literature for pleasure and for technical admiration, not for "linguistics". I was a LitCrit guy originally - specifically, dramatic criticism - so most of my favorites are playwrights.

@user8153 In my experience, no. Contemporary readers who are not widely read have difficulty with anything more than about a hundred years old, and as I said before, the written language is a foreign language to speakers: it must be learned. But it is possible for native speakers to become fluent in the written language at a very early age ...

... and NNS will not have any greater difficulty with the written language of any period than with the spoken language: both dialects are equally foreign.

You are saying what Thoreau says in Walden!

Timeless wisdom never changes, ever ringing the same tune in our ears.

Quite possibly. I have not read Walden since I was in high school fifty years ago!

Is that sentence grammatical? I am a bit worried..."timeless...in our ears"

Sure. In our ears modifies ringing, not timeless.

@StoneyB How can I become a writer like you? A paid writer.

Thank you.

I have no idea. It happened to me by accident: I was out of work, a woman with whom I had once run a theatre company and who now ran a communications company needed a writer for a project, so I became a writer. I found it was a lot easier than working for a living, so I stayed.

So it was just a fortuity then.

Yep. Some are born writers, some achieve writerhood, and some have writing thrust upon them. [That's a modification of a line in Shakespeare!] I had writing thrust upon me.

Ha, from King Lear!

@StoneyB But how do you judge your writing? It just so happens that when you try to write beautiful prose, you will doubt what you have written; whether it is grammatical or not, whether the usage of the words is correct or not, etc. How do you do that?

As a non-native speaker, I find myself in this situation all the more often. How do you think I can resolve this problem?

Twelfth Night, actually. ... Practise. Experience. It's like any other skill: you have to have deep experience doing it and deep experience attending to it. You cannot become a good writer without also becoming a good reader, just as you cannot become a good violinist without practice listening to good violinists and discerning what it is that they are doing.

NS, of course, have thousands of hours both listening to their language and speaking their language before they ever start to write. It is very rare for a NNS to have the opportunity for that sort of immersion, although they can in many cases work by analogy from their own languages. You have a better chance of mastering written English if you master writing in your own language, because that will itself make you sensitive to nuance.

I see. Thank you very much.

Write, write, write. Hate what you've written, throw it away and start over. [I still, to this day, type five or ten words for every word I deliver to a client. It's why I'm uncomfortable in chat, because I have to deliver without rewriting!] After you've thrown away a couple of million words you'll be some sort of writer.