Omitted words

Question

I have extracted the following text from a comic forum.

While I do understand, most of manga writer are the very same guy who draw the art, thus no writing lesson or anything. I kinda hoping for them to maybe, pop up in a 1-2 month writing class. Maybe they will learn how to structure your story, so they don't need to use deus ex machina every frickin time.

Now, black and white morality. While I do understand most of manga genre are targeted for kids, but once you've made a political story, then, the deal is off. There are no, I want to destroy the world because I just want to see darkness. Or I want to save the world, because white rukh are good.

1) I'd like to know whether "there is" is omitted before "writing lesson or anything."
2) I'd like to know whether "black and white morality" is omitted after "There are no."

Thank you in advance for your help.

Doctor D · Accepted Answer

This is very casual, sloppy speech.
I read the "no writing lesson or anything" phrase as shorthand for something like:
"thus they have had no writing lessons or anything like that" (before composing the manga).

In the second paragraph, I believe the writer wants to say:
Now let us discuss the issue of black and white morality (in the manga).
So when he gets to "There are no," his point seems to be:
In that case, there is no longer any ability to simply say: I want to destroy the world...or, I want to save the world ...

Does that help?

Park sang joon · Answer

Thank you, Doctor D, for your very elaborate answer.

I was wondering about a various of usages of ellipses.

"thus they have had no writing lessons or anything like that"

Can we omit even a general verb like "had"?

In that case, there is no longer any ability to simply say: I want to destroy the world...

I'd like know how come you think those verbose words can be omitted which we can never deduce from the context.

Doctor D · Answer

I do not think the words can be omitted if you want a grammatical sentence.  Also, your audience may not be able to follow your ideas if you omit too much.

Park sang joon · Answer

Thank you, DoctorD, for your valuable information.

Then, can I omit a general verb like "have", "eat", "go", "live" in the spoken English?

2) I'd like to know whether "black and white morality" is omitted after "There are no."

Is my deduction #2 impossible?

Doctor D · Answer

What can be omitted depends on what is being said and to whom. I have no firm rules for it. However, you can usually omit phrases that repeat, if your sentence is in parallel form.

For example
I read Moby **** to the very end and I also read Tale of Two Cities to the very end.
I read Moby **** and Tale of Two Cities to the very end.

I bought some beautiful shirts, some beautiful slacks, and some beautiful hats.
I bought some beautiful shirts, slacks, and hats.

==
As to deduction #2: No, "black and white morality" is not omitted after "There are no."
Here is the original language: There are no, I want to destroy the world because I just want to see darkness
The thought there is roughly: It is unacceptable to say "I want to destroy the world because...
Or various other versions of this: You can no longer say such things as 'I want to destroy the world because..."
The only way "black and white morality" could be part of the omitted words is if many more words were also omitted. Thus:
There is no black and white morality once you choose that [the political story], so you can no longer say "I want to destroy the world because..."

Is this clear?

Park sang joon · Answer

Thank you, Doctor D, for your very detailed answer.

How about this ?: "There are no black and white morality as the following, I want to destroy the world because I just want to see darkness. Or I want to save the world, because white rukh are good."

CalifJim · Answer

park sang joon1) I'd like to know whether "there is" is omitted before "writing lesson or anything."2) I'd like to know whether "black and white morality" is omitted after "There are no."

When the writing style is as loose as this, there is no way to say what is omitted. The writer is just stringing incomplete thoughts together without much attempt to make anything grammatical. As the reader, you can take the writer's words and put them into a grammatical form in any way that makes sense to you. You must not think that the writer had very definite phrases in mind which he deliberately omitted. And you must not think that there is a way for you to imitate this kind of writing by discovering some methodology behind it — not that you should imitate it anyway.

1) I take "thus no writing lesson or anything" to be a very unconventional way of saying, "so the artists have no special training in writing" or "so these are produced by people who are not professional writers". So no, just saying that "there is" is omitted doesn't explain it very well. You see, it's not a matter of a few words being omitted. You have to make some rather big leaps of logic to reformulate these scraps of words into complete grammatical ideas.

2) I take "There are no, I want to destroy the world ..." to be a way of saying, "(once you've made a political story,) you can no longer write stories that portray simplistic ideas like "I want to destroy the world because I just want to see darkness" or ideas like "I want to save the world, because white rukhs are good". So this is not the omission of "black and white morality". In fact, that wouldn't even make a grammatical sentence, because "There are no black and white morality" is ungrammatical. And, more importantly, it wouldn't make sense, because it is not "black and white morality" that there can be no more of. It is the simplistic ideas described that there can be no more of.

As you can see, I agree with what Doctor D has already written on this subject.

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

park sang joonHow about this ?: "There ~~are~~ is no black and white morality such as the following,

In my opinion, that's closer to the idea that the writer is trying to express.

CJ

Park sang joon · Answer

Thank you, Mr.Jim, for your very detailed answer and correction.

"There are is no black and white morality such as the following."

This is very helpful to me.

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