"Me Talk Pretty One Day"

      At first glance, David Sedaris's anecdote "Me Talk Pretty One Day" immediately breaks rule number one in The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing by Michael Harvey. Entertaining as the story was, the "pompous college writing" still proved to be a chore to wade through. However, though he could have been more concise, Sedaris exercised most of the applicable guidelines set in Harvey's book, resulting in a story that carries the reader all the way to the end.
     To prevent a reader from getting stuck between paragraphs or sentences, linking words are used quite often in Sedaris's story. For example, he writes "After being singled out as a lazy kfdtinvfm..." (Sedaris 14), employing time as a link between the paragraph and the previous (Harvey n.p.). Without such links, the reader would be too distracted trying to make the jump between paragraphs to enjoy the story.
     Now that readers can make it between paragraphs without stops, it is imperative that the paragraphs capture the readers' interest so readers have no wish to stop. For this purpose, Sedaris uses punch lines.
          The teacher licked her lips, revealing a hint of the saucebox we would later
          come to know. She crouched low for her attack, placed her hands on the young
          woman’s desk, and leaned close, saying, “Oh yeah? And do you love your little war?”
          (Sedaris 12)
Like the good comedians Harvey describes, Sedaris crouches low, coiling up the reader like a spring, drawing out the moment until, with an "oh yeah," he releases the pent-up energy with one little phrase, the punch line (Harvey n.p.).
     Even with the help of the punch line, however, the entire anecdote would be rather boring if Sedaris had abused the passive voice. When he does use it, however, Harvey's general rule about passive voices--it "makes sense when you want to emphasize an action" and "don't care about the agent"--applies (Harvey n.p.). Take the passive tone in this sentence for example: "Vacations
were recounted, and questions were raised concerning mutual friends with names like
Kang and Vlatnya" (Sedaris 11). The narrator really doesn't care who these people are, particularly because he doesn't know yet. All that matters, then, is what they are doing, making the passive voice very appropriate.
     It is rather unfortunate that the "pompous writing style" was so prominent throughout Sedaris's story. Otherwise, the story was quite captivating, flowing with linking words through punch lines and properly-used passive and active voices. If Sedaris doesn't already "talk pretty" in French, he certainly does in English writing.