Peter Jaros wrote:
On Feb 24, 2004, at 11:51 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Peter Jaros wrote:
Giving a recipe for a particular chocolate cake would not serve to describe chocolate cake. If one recipe was particularly famous, however, it might merit its own section (or possibly article; I'd like to try *that* cake) where the recipe *would* be descriptive. It's a subtle distinction, but an important one. It comes through to readers, if only in terms of a sense of the style.
That's very patronizing of you.
Sorry, I worded that poorly. What I meant that the distinction may not jump out at casual readers, but it sounds better nonetheless. As analogy, using the wrong word in a sentence and making the sentence meaningless is obvious to even a casual reader, while using casual language in a formal setting is often "felt" while not directly noticed. It can take a bit of working with a sentence to figure out what in it sounds too casual (or too formal, or awkward, etc.).
I do get a little hot over these deletion issues. :-)
The expression that I found most patronizing was "it might merit its own section". I suspect that the subtleties between descriptive and prescriptive or between imperatiuve and indicative might not be meningful to the casual reader who wants to find out about a food and/or how to make it. The technical detailsof chocolate cakes are not inherently controversial. If different ways exist for making such a cake, the results of which is better can be entirely subjective.
Using a wrong word that gives the sentence a different meaning, rather than just making it meaningless can launch a discussion into a very different direction. I confess to being quick to notice this kind of thing as I did with the earlier part of your previous post. "Proscriptive" and "prescriptive" have almost contradictory meanings, but grammaticaly can fit equally well into the same context. I couldn't pass up the opportunity.
Ec