Words only have demonstrable meaning according to their function in specific contexts and even the neurological evidence supports that grammar is acquired by pattern matching and is merely the proximity of syntax or what you could call a shortcut. My own writing incorporates contextual vagueness where I frequently use the most vague of the more popular definitions, usually among the top three most popular definitions. That way I can explore what I'm writing for any humble and elegant simplicity within the metaphors and produce a recursive logic that allows me to expand on what I'm writing. It takes longer, but it produces results and can reconcile grammar with what I'm writing.

My writing is general because I only write about things I know. — curious

You could do worse; much worse.

Yes, well... nouns, verbs, and grammar are a problem, true.

Please tell me more about your writing.

I have a serious problem with the word "grammar" for I do not understand about verbs and nouns but sentence structure helps me more — curious

You don't need any explicit knowledge of grammar to be a good writer. You may, however, need explicit knowledge of it to understand feedback on your writing.

Words only have demonstrable meaning according to their function in specific contexts and even the neurological evidence supports that grammar is acquired by pattern matching and is merely the proximity of syntax or what you could call a shortcut. My own writing incorporates contextual vagueness where I frequently use the most vague of the more popular definitions, usually among the top three most popular definitions. — wuliheron

It's true that words have psychological resonances beyond their dictionary definitions; they carry with them the baggage of the context in which they have been used / misused over time, and certainly a good writer recognizes that fact and uses it in their writing. Beyond that I'm not sure what you mean by "contextual vagueness".

That way I can explore what I'm writing for any humble and elegant simplicity within the metaphors and produce a recursive logic that allows me to expand on what I'm writing. It takes longer, but it produces results and can reconcile grammar with what I'm writing. — wuliheron

Again, I don't follow this. By "recursive logic" are you referring to an awareness of the embeddedness of your choice of metaphors in changing sociocultural contexts over time? And how could this "reconcile" grammar with what you're writing?

The word "story" confounds me as well. Is there an order to just writing? — curious

Just writing is just writing; there is no other order other than the one you, yourself, put there. But there is an order to most texts, which can be divided into genres that have similar structural elements. Generally a "story" is a narrative, and narratives contain the elements of scene setting, followed by the introduction of a complication, followed by the search for a resolution, which leads to the climax of the story - the resolution itself, and then an optional coda (any wrapping up after the resolution). They don't have to follow this exact formula, of course, but if you sit down to write a story, you will probably find yourself naturally tending towards this order under the influence of the writing in this genre you've already experienced. And if you stray too far from it, you will no longer have a "story" but something else.

I have a serious problem with the word grammar... — Curious

Well, if it helps, this might have been better written:

'I have serious problems with the word "grammar" '.

It's true that words have psychological resonances beyond their dictionary definitions; they carry with them the baggage of the context in which they have been used / misused over time, and certainly a good writer recognizes that fact and uses it in their writing. Beyond that I'm not sure what you mean by "contextual vagueness".

Again, I don't follow this. By "recursive logic" are you referring to an awareness of the embeddedness of your choice of metaphors in changing sociocultural contexts over time? And how could this "reconcile" grammar with what you're writing? — Baden

Someone saying, "She's Hot!" is an example of contextual vagueness and how words only have demonstrable meaning in specific contexts. Whether the speaker is referring to a good looking woman, a car, a boat, or a hamster with a fever cannot be determined without a more explicit context. If they add, "She Hot! Just look at those curves!" you still can't tell if they are talking about a woman, a car, or a boat, but its pretty easy to rule out a hamster with a fever. That is the recursive logic where the contents become more explicit as the unfolding context does.

Russian Kachinka dolls carved out of wood and nested inside one another are a graphic example of the same principle. The smallest doll on the inside has the least detail painted on it. A matrix such as a spreadsheet illustrates the same principle as well. The more you grasp how recursive metaphors work the better you comprehend how grammar is related to the proximity of syntax.

Hm, I thought you were referring to the notions of intertextuality and dialogism à la Kristeva and Bakhtin i.e. the meanings in texts being nested in the context of their meanings in other texts.

The more you grasp how recursive metaphors work the better you comprehend how grammar is related to the proximity of syntax. — wuliheron

I don't think you can sensibly refer to the process you described as involving "recursive metaphors"; an unfolding context that reveals the specificity of a metaphorical meaning doesn't involve recursion in terms of the metaphor itself. That would be something like the meaning of the metaphor being applied to itself and thereby performing the function of illiciting further layers of meaning. This isn't what's happening in the resolution of contextual vagueness; what's happening is simply the revelation of further information which narrows down the possible scope of meaning.

As for grammar and syntax, the latter is part of the former, so of course they are inextricably related. When you talk about syntax, you are by definition talking about grammar. So, I don't know what you mean by "grammar is related to the proximity of syntax" or how it relates to the rest of what you said. What is the "proximity of syntax"? The proximity of syntax to what? (i.e. What are you suggesting syntax (the rules concerning clause and sentence formation) is close to)? And how does that relate to grammar in any way other and above being a part of grammar?

Bitter Crank,
I failed creative writing because I could not be creative. With general writing, I get by. I am thinking about just writing with a pen on paper. No editing no critiquing. The editing on this forum is good; it by itself has told me much about writing. I just want to be understood. For a while I wrote by e-mail without grammar of any sort and which I called it rattling. To this day I still rattle which means no editing not critiquing, but the editor is right with my spelling. Curious.

You know, people made that shit up too, another example of attempting to capture something alive and moving and putting it in a jar.

Oh, and by the way, another thing "she's hot" can mean is "she's stolen".

Signing every note "curious" sounds like a general confused wonderment. Curious.

I'm going to change my name to Balls.

I don't think you can sensibly refer to the process you described as involving "recursive metaphors"; an unfolding context that reveals the specificity of a metaphorical meaning does not involve recursion in terms of the metaphor itself. That would be something like the meaning of the metaphor being applied to itself and thereby performing the function of illiciting further layers of meaning. This is not what's happening in the resolution of contextual vagueness; what's happening is simply the revelation of further information which narrows down the possible scope of meaning.

As for grammar and syntax, the latter is part of the former, so of course they are inextricably related. When you talk about syntax, you are by definition talking about grammar. So, I don't know what you mean by "grammar is related to the proximity of syntax" or how it relates to the rest of what you said. What is the "proximity of syntax"? The proximity of syntax to what? (i.e. What are you suggesting syntax (the rules concerning clause and sentence formation) is close to)? And how does that relate to grammar in any way other and above being a part of grammar? — Baden

Ah good, someone who knows more about the subject than I do in some ways!

Life, the universe, and everything can be considered a metaphor from which all other metaphors can be derived. For example, for me life is the paradox of our existence making everything ultimately paradoxical and part of a universal recursion in the law of identity. The Taoists formulated a recursive metaphoric logic using this approach 12,000 years ago. Another way of expressing the same concept is that everything that exists is context dependent.

This is analog logic from which digital or dualistic classical logic can be derived and expresses how the human mind and brain are actually organized, while you are talking about them from the opposite point of view as if dualistic logic ruled the universe which is demonstrably false. Grammar is derived from syntax which is ultimately based upon metaphoric logic and merely concerns how different parts of speech and concepts are put together to make more sense out them.

http://literarydevices.net/syntax/

The process is based on pattern matching and much of the neural networks responsible have already been mapped out in the brain. In the brain, grammar is actually physically as well as metaphorically derived from its proximity to syntax. In fact, for me, there is no distinction between the physical and metaphorical just as there is none in quantum mechanics.

Shadows provide an everyday example of how what we perceive is context dependent, rather than merely being an issue of scale or any particular attribute of anything. What we might call a shadow in the daytime can become a faint light in the dark and, you could say, the shadow is but the eternal memory of the light. Even in a sealed vacuum chamber virtual particles will appear out of nowhere and the human eye is sensitive enough to detect a single photon ensuring that nobody is ever left completely in the dark. Mathematically speaking, photons appear to experience isomorphic space-time, where they cannot distinguish between forward or backwards in either space or time, just as we might say a shadow experiences neither space nor time because it has no content.

Similarly, as far as anyone can tell, photons are emitted and absorbed instantaneously just as we might say any shadow appears and disappears instantaneously and photons merely convey energy and information with perfect fidelity just as we might say a shadow conveys the lack of energy and information with perfect fidelity. The famous wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics can therefore be attributed to their extreme context dependence from a human perspective because even whether they exist or not simply depends upon the context. Without a context, for example, its also impossible to distinguish a joke from a truth. Everything being context dependent explains why its impossible to produce a perfect vacuum, absolute zero, or attain the speed of light as merely yin transforming into yang or the context and content exchanging identities.

Grammar is derived from syntax which is ultimately based upon metaphoric logic and merely concerns how different parts of speech and concepts are put together to make more sense out them. — wuliheron

An explicit syntax is derived from an implicit knowledge of how to put concepts together etc (if that's what you're referring to). People, of course, spoke before we learned to analyze and describe (not to mention prescribe and proscribe) how they spoke. There is no distinction to be made here between grammar and syntax in the way you are making it though. And the link you provided is just a basic definition of syntax and some of its uses, and bears no relation to the specifics of what you've written above.

The process is based on pattern matching and much of the neural networks responsible have already been mapped out in the brain. In the brain, grammar is actually physically as well as metaphorically derived from its proximity to syntax. In fact, for me, there is no distinction between the physical and metaphorical just as there is none in quantum mechanics — wuliheron

Syntax is a part of grammar so the parts of the brain responsible for it are by definition coterminous with some parts of the brain responsible for grammar. Grammar also includes, for example, rules governing morphology, which you seem to ignore in your analysis. How does the latter fit into your schema?

This is analog logic from which digital or dualistic classical logic can be derived and expresses how the human mind and brain are actually organized, while you are talking about them from the opposite point of view as if dualistic logic ruled the universe which is demonstrably false. — wuliheron

That could be, in which case we may be talking past each other, though I still don't accept that context dependency is a form of recursion. And when you talk about recursion in the context of linguistics, the specific meanings it has cannot be brushed aside. That fact in itself is a form of context dependency.

Sorry, but you are wrong about how the brain works according to all the neurology. The human brain is organized on a fundamental level as an analog self-organizing systems logic analogous to a distributed gain amplifier that obeys Bayesian probabilities vanishing into indeterminacy. But all that can be considered a fancy way to say our neurons search for what's missing from this picture by first generating enormously complex patterns and then comparing them. Its metaphoric logic that suggests the mind and brain are the particle-wave duality of quantum mechanics.

Another implication is that synergy can work in reverse as well and, for example, a child attached to their small toy as the meaning of life itself will, nonetheless, grow up to embrace bigger and better things. Whether they want their toy to become less meaningful for them or not their attachment will slowly fade and become more abstract until it can be lost like a drop of water in the ocean. The collective synergy of all their growing thoughts and feelings actually blunts or normalizes their individual impact which, in physics, are known as yin-yang push-pull dynamics. Synergy is transforming into normalization and vice versa obeying a principle of the Conservation of Efficiency and Creativity. That is, everything that exists resembles the creativity of a Big Bang and finale of a Big Crunch because everything organizes around what's missing from this picture.

Bitter Crank,
I failed creative writing because I could not be creative. — curious

I doubt very much that you could not be creative, but "creative writing" isn't the same as "creativity". "Creative writing" is about turning out specific kinds of writing that follow certain forms -- the short story, poetry, drama. The student is expected to turn out writing that conforms to the teacher's expectations. I also took a creative writing class and found that I wasn't very good at it.

With general writing, I get by. I am thinking about just writing with a pen on paper. No editing no critiquing. — curious

Back in the 1980s, somebody (can't remember) wrote a book by the title of (can't remember) in which he argued that writing on a computer screen is quite different than using a typewriter (or using pen on paper) because it "costs nothing" to edit. He wasn't talking about literal cost, rather, psychological cost. When you use a typewriter, or pen on paper, there is no easy way of making mistakes disappear. You can cross them out, but you can still see where the error was. And it takes much more actual labor to make an error on a typewritten or ink-written page disappear. On a computer, selected text disappears effortlessly and completely. The writer is less committed to any particular phrasing on a computer screen, than he would otherwise be.

Spell and grammar checking, and automatic word substitution, wasn't readily available on the personal computers that the author would have been using, and they weren't as good then as they are now. It is still a good idea to think about what you are writing--spelling, grammar, punctuation, word choice, all that.

The editing on this forum is good; it by itself has told me much about writing. I just want to be understood. For a while I wrote by e-mail without grammar of any sort and which I called it rattling. To this day I still rattle which means no editing not critiquing, but the editor is right with my spelling. Curious. — curious

Well, lots of people rattle on.

I haven't read much of your writing, but what I have read so far would suggest that you don't have any problem producing perfectly intelligible texts. Here are some suggestions for practice.

1. Write more, much more. Writing well takes practice. Write a lot. Keep your originals for a while for comparison.
2. Use ordinary words and plain sentence structure (more or less what you are already doing in your posts here).
3. Write about whatever interests you.
4. If you can, find somebody who can give you useful feedback and can spot mechanical errors (we all make mechanical errors -- punctuation, spelling, typos, misplaced words, etc.).

By the way, you might be interested in Jack Kerouac's book, "On The Road"§ which he wrote in 1957. Kerouac was one of the original "beatniks". He wrote the book on a roll of teletype paper (teletypes have pretty much disappeared, but the rolls were about the size of a paper towel roll and were pretty cheap paper. One could put one end in one's typewriter and type for many hours without stopping, which is what he did. He didn't edit himself as he wrote. The publisher edited the text, of course. Kerouac didn't indicate page breaks, used real names (later changed) and such. He just 'rattled on'.

Here's an interesting little film (4 minutes or so) about Kerouac's manuscript.

§

When the book was originally released, The New York Times hailed it as "the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as 'beat,' and whose principal avatar he is."[1] In 1998, the Modern Library ranked On the Road 55th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The novel was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. Wikipedia

My writing is general because I only write about things I know. — curious

You don't know anything specific? What you ate for breakfast this morning would be specific, for example. Don't you know that?

"She's hot" could also mean that your cat is looking for a mouse should that be what you say when your cat is looking for a mouse.

That is to say that context always matters, with the words constituting only a portion of the thought being conveyed.