[LeftHandPath]

What a lovely essay. Reminds me of the way I loved the liberal arts growing up. I missed having classes like that in college (AP'd and ACT'd my way out of most requirements).

English teachers seem especially prone to that friendly and sporting demeanor the author has. Professors from the engineering schools are far more prescriptive, probably due to the nature of the material.

[ElevenLathe]

All the best writers that I know in the sense that you mean (communicating information precisely), including non-native speakers, are also avid fiction readers. Many also write fiction or prose for fun. Familiarity and fluency with the details of usage and vocabulary are what let one employ these things precisely for whatever purpose, fictional or not.

[thisoneisreal]

To back up your point, I kind of hated English class until my senior year of high school when I took AP English Language (nonfiction), after which I started drinking books from a firehose.

[DiscourseFan]

> I had to become a middle aged adult and learn this for myself.

This is a cliche.

You can’t write precisely without an understanding of how language becomes imprecise, of its fundamental instability. Precision and delicate use is an accident when it does happen, and its happening can never be proven. We must have faith in the accident.

[aquariusDue]

I agree that it's a good distinction to make. Personally I haven't thought about it till I read On Writing Well by William Zinsser. In the book he specifically teaches writing nonfiction and even shares an anecdote where he was a guest on a radio show promoting a writing conference and was annoyed with the host because he conflated writing with literary works.

So yeah, I recommend the book to people interested in writing.

[thaumasiotes]

More traditionally you'd study "rhetoric", the art of making your arguments appealing. It doesn't really matter whether the things you say are true or false.

Rhetoric is valuable in any writing endeavor; clarity is only valuable sometimes.