Neat People Vs. Sloppy People

Neat People vs. Sloppy People

1.What is the author's purpose? Did she write this to make fun of neat or sloppy people? Is she trying to assess their habits? Is she trying to entertain the reader?

  The author's purpose is to compare the neat people and sloppy people's life habit, and she strong criticize the neat people's habit. In my opinion, she didn't write this to make fun of anyone, she just expressed her own opinion between neat people and sloppy people. She talked a lot of neat people's drawbacks and sloppy people's merits about their life habits, she had her own views instead of assessing their habits. At last, although I laughed a lot while I was reading this, I don't think she is trying to entertain. The contents she talked in this reading are not applying to everyone, maybe she just wanted to criticize some neat people she met.

2.What is the tone of the essay? What words or phrases in the essay help you determine the tone?

  I think the tone of the essay is critical. When the author talked about the neat people, her attitude was cynical, like "Neat people are bums and clods at heart", "They are so insensitive", "Neat people place neatness above everything, even economics". All of these above show that author holds an negative attitude towards the neat people and the tone of the essay is critical.

Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out

1.What can you infer about the author's attitude toward the difference between the sexes? Does he see a way out?

  The author seems having an impatient and fussy attitude towards the women's about cleaning the dirt and stimulating a conversation. In this reading, I don't think he sees a way out for cleaning dirt but he sees a way out avoiding women's conversations, pretending to do housework or take care of babies.

2.How objective is the author's portrayal of men and women?

  The author describes the difference between men and women in the first paragraph, he says "women can see extremely small quantities of dirt", and in the second paragraph he says "men tend to do extremely little in the way of useful housework". Also, as the author says about sports "men tend to feel very sensitive and women tend to be extremely callous".