"Me Talk Pretty One Day"

In the essay, “Me Talk Pretty One Day”, David Sedaris generally follows the rules laid out in The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing by Michael Harvey. Sedaris uses a comfortable writing style to describe his experience learning French in Paris while maintaining clarity and strength.

One of Sedaris’ more notable strays from the rules given by Harvey is his use of commas. In “Me Talk Pretty One Day”, commas are often misplaced and overused. For example Sedaris says, “And it struck me that, for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every word that someone was saying” (14). This sentence violates Harvey’s rule: “Don’t put commas between subject and verb… or between any such close pair of grammatical elements” (Harvey). Being that “for” and “that” are closely related words, there should not be a comma placed between them separating one idea. Another example of poorly placed commas is when Sedaris says, “…the coming months would teach us what it was like to spend time in the presence of a wild animal, something completely unpredictable” (13). Instead of placing a comma after the word “animal”, the rules of The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing say that a semicolon would have been the better option. “The semicolon signals the end of an independent clause—but it also idicates a link … to the next clause” (Harvey). The action of spending time with a wild animal and the description of what it would be like are the independent clauses in this case, and therefore should be separated by a semicolon rather than a comma. More examples of the misuse of commas are present throughout Sedaris’ essay.

“Me Talk Pretty One Day” does an outstanding job of avoiding the use of the pompous style mentioned by Harvey at the beginning of his book. He says to use a more concise structure to strengthen verbs and adjective. Sedaris uses an informal tone throughout the essay giving it a conversational feel. This allows the reader to better understand the writer and increases its clarity. An example of this can be seen when Sedaris says, “Call me sensitive, but I couldn’t help but take it personally” (13). The humorous approach that he took combined with the common vocabulary used is easy for the reader to connect with and understand. If he would have added unnecessary adjectives to describe the feelings that it brought about it would have taken away from the clarity of the essay.

Sedaris also follows Harvey’s advice in regards to the use of in-text questions. For example Sedaris says, “I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object which is incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself. Why refer to Lady Crack Pipe or Good Sir Dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?” (13), it follows Harvey’s summative question role; “…questions can also serve a summative function, helping the reader digest what you’ve just argued even as you point the way ahead” (Harvey). The question from “Me Talk Pretty One Day” provides emphasis to Sedaris’ idea that assigning a gender to objects is silly and unnecessary.

With the exception of certain grammatical errors, Sedaris does a good job of following the guidelines given in Harvey’s The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing. The essay does a good job of avoiding an overly-elevated vocabulary and following the basic structure of standard college writing.

**The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing for Kindle does not have available page numbers**