Week 8: Writing Style

Week 8: Writing Style

One of my favorite pieces that I have read this semester is Nietzsche’s “Twilight of the Idols.” Nietzsche’s writing style is diverse, unique, fun and entertaining, which surprised me for writing from the early 1800's. While there are many passages that I can choose to demonstrate his style, I have chosen this one because it oozes personality and sass in addition to his unique style:

 “With Socrates Greek taste undergoes a change in favour of dialectics: what is really happening when that happens? It is above all the defeat of a nobler taste; with dialectics the rabble gets on top. Before Socrates, the dialectical manner was repudiated in good society: it was regarded as a form of bad manners, one was compromised by it. Young people were warned against it. And all such presentation of one’s reasons was regarded with mistrust. Honest things, like honest men, do not carry their reasons exposed in this fashion. It is indecent to display all one’s goods. What has first to have itself proved is of little value. Wherever authority is still part of accepted usage and one does not ‘give reasons’ but commands, the dialectician is a kind of buffoon: he is laughed at, he is not taken seriously. – Socrates was the buffoon who got himself taken seriously: what was really happening when that happened?”

Nietzsche uses a mix of sentence structures to make his writing readable and fun. He has some sentences start with introductory phrases while others are simple sentences with subject, verb, and direct object. Some sentences have lists, others have interrupting or parenthetical phrases and some have interesting punctuation choices. I also find it interesting how Nietzsche used rhetorical questions to make him seem smarter and further degrade Socrates (the poor guy). Nietzsche used his writing style to grab the reader’s interest, make himself appear more credible and further prove his arguments.

The editing mistake I found this week I found at a local waffle place in Bountiful, Waffle Love. Along the walls of the smaller building, they have a mural depicting their story from food truck to restaurant. In one section, however, they added two i’s to “encouraging.” It’s a simple mistake to make, especially in hand-written text, but it also could have easily been proof-read and fixed.