DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN SPEAKING AND WRITING

A few seconds from a popular disc-jockey show were typed out as follows:
That's Patty Baby and that's the girl with the dancing feet and that's Freddy Cannon there on the David Mickie Show in the night time ooohbah scubadoo how are you booboo. Next we'll be Swinging on a Star and sssshhhwwoooo and sliding on a moonbeam. Waaaaaaa how about that...one of the goodest guys with you...this is lovable kissable D.M. in the p.m. at 22 minutes past nine o'clock there, aahhrightie, we're gonna have a Hitline, all you have to do is call WAlnut 5-1151, WAlnut 5-1151, tell them what number it is on the Hitline.

Dave Mickie alternately soars, groans, swings, sings, solos, intones, and scampers, always reacting to his own actions. He moves entirely on the spoken rather than the written area of experience. It is in this way that audience participation is created. The spoken word involves all of the senses dramatically, though highly literate people tend to speak as connectedly and casually as possible.

The Difference is informality--loose structure and irregular pattern. The same expression can have different meanings if it is spoken in different ways, yet the expression would be written practically the same way in each instance. Special ways must be developed to express shades of meaning when we are writing. Written language is deliberate; it proceeds in a straight line, one word after another, one sentence after another. We can take advantage of this deliberateness. We can use fewer words (Moral: Make every word count). We can convey extended lines of reasoning (Moral: Reread a previous sentence while crafting the current sentence so it will link with the following sentence).

The Flexibility of the Spoken Language. When we speak, we can clarify meaning in ways which are not available when we write.

1. We can create emphasis by raising or lowering our voices.
2. We can sound certain words loudly or softly.
3. We can use gestures.
4. We can stop and start over again.
5. We can rely on our listeners to interrupt us and answer us.

The Regularity of Written English. Sentences are self-contained units. Sentences have the following characteristics:

1. A customary sentence structure (subject-verb pattern)
2. Unity--everything in the sentence is related to one topic; there is no shift in direction.
3. The careful signalling of a beginning and ending of a sentence.
4. Sentences are carefully related to one another. All pronouns have antecedents.
5. A consistent patterning of items in a series. Items in a series belong to the same word class.
6. Uniform spelling.

One can speak the simple greeting "good morning" and mean: 1) "I'm pleased to see you." 2) "Let's get to work." 3) "Here's that pest again." 4) "Please come again." 5) "Goodby." 6) "Duh!" 7) "Surprise!" Choose one of the ways of speaking "good morning" and describe a context, a setting that would make the meaning of the greeting clear to the reader.