Word count: 267 words
Reading time: About 1 minute
A great way to improve your writing skills is to emulate the work of others. That’s why, every week, I present a sentence that I’d happily imitate. Today’s comes from Michael Specter in the New York Times.
I’ve never much liked Dr. Mehmet Oz. He seems too cocky to me. Too full of himself. I also don’t like the way he shills green coffee bean extract and raspberry ketones. To me it seems as though he’s taken a big leap across the chasm that separates scientists from snake oil salesmen.
A Feb. 4/13 New Yorker piece by Michael Specter takes on Dr. Oz and explores how the doctor has started offering what the writer calls “tenuous treatments for serious conditions.” Specter does a convincing job of summarizing the science. But I like his writing style, which is both captivating and very visual. Take, for example, his description of how Oz looks:
Oz is fifty-two and jauntily fit, with a perfectly tamed helmet of brown hair and lengthy sideburns.
I love the expression “jauntily fit” which perfectly characterizes a talk-TV host who bounds down the aisle oozing energy and endless good cheer. That “jauntily” modifies the word “fit” almost feels as a slap in the face. “See how fit Oz is and how out-of-shape YOU are,” it seems to be saying. In fact, Oz is such a master of the human body, he can even tame his own hair!
If only the rest of us were similarly perfect….
