A question!
Aug. 18th, 2011 05:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceBecause I know you enjoy these things. These glimpses of doubt and moments of legitimate enquiry.
Consider grace: that quality, that attribute. I'm trying not to be fancy or theological here; divine grace is a wholly different issue (I hope). But can I reasonably call grace a virtue?
Oh, all right. Context:
If there was only one thing Grace did well, with a natural confidence and the virtue she was named for, swimming would be that thing. Water became her.
I wrote that, and then hesitated, and did a dictionary-scramble, and cycled through - well, "quality" and "attribute", largely - and came back to virtue, as I do, because that's what I want. But if readers are going to stumble and cry "grace is not a virtue! it's a quality/attribute/gift!" then I should probably avoid it. (Note for the curious: yes, this is absolutely how I read a text, I argue with it all the time. I stopped reading one author altogether because he perpetrated one clumsy double-meaning that I was sure he did not intend.)
Consider grace: that quality, that attribute. I'm trying not to be fancy or theological here; divine grace is a wholly different issue (I hope). But can I reasonably call grace a virtue?
Oh, all right. Context:
If there was only one thing Grace did well, with a natural confidence and the virtue she was named for, swimming would be that thing. Water became her.
I wrote that, and then hesitated, and did a dictionary-scramble, and cycled through - well, "quality" and "attribute", largely - and came back to virtue, as I do, because that's what I want. But if readers are going to stumble and cry "grace is not a virtue! it's a quality/attribute/gift!" then I should probably avoid it. (Note for the curious: yes, this is absolutely how I read a text, I argue with it all the time. I stopped reading one author altogether because he perpetrated one clumsy double-meaning that I was sure he did not intend.)
sorry, no
Date: 2011-08-18 06:02 pm (UTC)I would notice the "wrongness" there right away and lodge a mental objection. Distracting.
ETA: the problem is that virtue is an outcome of morality and swimming/physicality is amoral.