Vitamins for the Wordsmith

"Let's go Narj, time to take our vitamins break!"
"What vitamins?"
"Vitamin U."
"What vitamin U?"
"Yusi!"

For the health-conscious urban worker, the cigarette break can never be considered as health supplement. But if you've been part of a construction project, a cigarette break is the best break you can always exploit. If I compare that kind of vitamins in the construction site with this non-fiction by AA Patawaran, the latter is more healthy and essential and never sarcastic.

I'm sure students of the English language will see this worthy on their shelves, on the pedestal with Strunk & White's The Elements of Style and Stephen King's On Writing. If you're looking for reasons and procedures on the "why" and "how" of writing and if you are looking for the right dose of inspiration and references across the media, the lifestyle journalist has plenty to share. Even by knowing his first encounter with the printed word is enough to reassert that you, apprentice of the craft--are not alone.

Falling in love with the printed word is just a first step. To make it alive, you have to feed it with discipline and commitment--even to the extent (and more importantly) of sacrifice. On a lighter note, his take on punctuation, the usage of the serial comma (Oxford/Harvard comma) is agreeable. It may vary on each user, but I can see his point.

This vitamins of a book never lacks encouragement, even for the language that "has been murdered many times over and every generation bemoans its death among the succeeding youth." For he assures us that "language survives every massacre and will always do…"

I think it's also true for the writer. Because he's the one in charge for the survival of language, and it is his duty and privilege to create something that will outlive himself. This one I stole from Chuck Palahniuk.


Genre: Reference, Memoir
Rating: 4 serial commas