"Me Talk Pretty One Day" Analysis

            The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing by Michael Harvey is a great little guide that has many helpful tips on how to improve writing.  After reading David Sedaris’ excerpt from his book Me Talk Pretty One Day, I could see that many of the tips and ideas mentioned in the guide were displayed in Sedaris’ writing.

            First and foremost, Nuts and Bolts talks about concision and clarity. The slogan used in Nuts and Bolts throughout the chapter for concision is “cut the fat!” (Harvey 9). The idea is to cut down on the wordiness so the main idea of the sentence or paragraph is easy to understand. Sedaris employs this strategy throughout his essay by using simple sentences such as “I’ve moved to Paris with hopes of learning the language” (Sedaris 11).  This sentence is short and easy to understand because there are no excess words. Nuts and Bolts also says “to write clearly, begin by making your narrative’s characters the subjects of sentences, and their actions and identities the predicates” (Harvey 10). In other words, use active voice. Sedaris does a pretty good job with this throughout the essay, especially when he introduces each of the characters. For example, to describe the teacher, he says “The teacher licked her lips…” (Sedaris 12). The subject of the sentence is the teacher and her action of licking her lips is the predicate. But, he does go against this rule occasionally by using passive voice like when he says “Vacations were recounted, and questions were raised…” (Sedaris 11). In general though, “Me Talk Pretty” is written in active voice, just like Nuts and Bolts wants it to be.  

            While most of the essay is clear, multiple times in his writing, Sedaris uses French words and broken and run-on sentences. For example, the teacher says “‘Even a fiuscrzsa ticiwelmun knows that a typewriter is feminine’” (Sedaris 13). The use of the French words confuses the reader because, unless they know French, they won’t know the meaning of the words. Another example of unclear writing is “‘That be common for I, also, but be more strong, you. Much work and someday you talk pretty. People start love you soon. Maybe tomorrow, okay’” (Sedaris 14). The English is broken, so obviously the writing is harder to understand. However, while these examples go against the ideas in Nuts and Bolts, Sedaris uses them on purpose to emphasize the point of his essay. This essay is talking about learning a different language and how hard it is to overcome a language barrier, so the broken English and the French words are added in to emphasize that overall point of the essay. Therefore, I don’t think they take away from the overall clearness of the writing. While most of the essay steers clear of run-on, Sedaris does have the occasional lapse. For instance, in just the second sentence of the essay, he says “After paying my tuition, I was issued a student ID, which allows me a discounted entry fee at movie theaters, puppet shows, and Festyland, a far-flung amusement park that advertises with billboards picturing a cartoon stegosaurus sitting in a canoe and eating what appears to be a ham sandwich” (Sedaris 11). This sentence is describing some benefits of being a college student, but the huge list of activities and descriptions make the sentence hard to follow. It would have been much clearer if he broke it up into two separate sentences. Other than these specific instances, Sedaris’ writing is concise and clear according to the criteria in Nuts and Bolts.

            A tip in Nuts and Bolts for the flow of the passage is to “use consistent characters” and “control how your reader moves from one character to the next” (Harvey 23). Sedaris follows this tip exactly when he introduces his classmates. He starts out describing the two Polish Annas, then Carlos the Argentinian, then a Yugoslav girl, and lastly the teacher (Sedaris 12). He finishes one description before he starts the next, and describes all the classmates in turn, so the reader doesn’t get confused. Sedaris also uses introductory phrases at the beginning of his sentences just like Nuts and Bolts advises to provide some a smooth transition into the sentence. This happens when Sedaris says “Unlike the French class I had taken in New York, here there was no sense of competition” (Sedaris 14). The first part of the sentence provides some extra information for the reader. These examples are perfect to show how a piece of writing can flow smoothly.  

            Harvey also details some techniques to help make the writing more graceful. One of the techniques is parallelism and the book says it “makes writing more comprehensible, graceful, and memorable” (Harvey 50). Specifically the book talks about the tricolon, a type of parallelism. The book says “lists tend to feel balanced and complete when they contain three items,” (Harvey 53). This is present in “Me Talk Pretty One Day” multiple times. Sedaris uses a tricolon when he describes his classmates as “young, attractive, and well-dressed” (Sedaris 11) and when he says “stopping for coffee, asking directions, depositing money in my bank account” (Sedaris 14). These little rhetoric devices are what make the writing as graceful as it is.

            Even though Sedaris sometimes strays from the path, the majority of “Me Talk Pretty One Day” follows the various techniques outlined in The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing. “Me Talk Pretty One Day” is concise, clear, graceful, and flows well, all of which are necessities of a good piece of writing. After the analysis, it is evident that Sedaris wrote clearly and effectively in his essay.