Curtis has no trouble arranging words in English to produce just the effect he wants. However, like Sae Young, he uses lots of very short sentences and sentence fragments. Reread this example of how Curtis crafts sentences.
Deltoids―awesome. Pecs―check ‘em out.
Question
How can you tell what “deltoids” and “pecs” are if you don’t already know?
In the next sentence, Curtis says “Quads―now playing on a
body near you.” Most readers can guess that the other words identify parts of the body. Once you see the
word “biceps” used in the same way, you can figure out the other words also describe muscles.
Curtis uses other variations on standard English to make his point―not just sentence fragments. Read this sentence from a little later in his chapter.
We had us a real nice thing going.
Question
What’s "wrong" with this sentence, grammatically? Why did Curtis say it this way?
The word us is unnecessary, and the word real
should be really. The phrase “had us a real nice thing” sounds cooler and more confident, however,
which is probably why Curtis chose it.
