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Write like you talk

paulgraham.com

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Re: Write like you talk

#141

Post by rdancer »

OJFord wrote: post #136

I think this is rubbish advice. I'd much rather we all spoke on first attempt like we write after thoughtful review. I'm reminded of the (gradual) removal of all Latin from British legislation with a view to making it more 'accessible', at the obvious expense of the concise preciseness that the language afford: "with having changed the things requiring changing" is rather less economical than "mutatis mutandis". In a…

> "thanks to .. for reading drafts of this"

What's the Latin for that?

Re: Write like you talk

#142

Post by ebt »

This whole idea and article leave me speechless (sic).

Talking and writing are two different mediums. Never heard of Marshall MacLuhan?

I curse a lot, at home, where I live alone. As soon as I step out the door I talk differently to my neighbors. I also adopt a different voice when I visit my family in another state. And then another when talking to co-workers.

So which of those should I write in?

Try putting "fucking" in the HN search bar. The top article I get is "Fucking Sue Me" with 689 points. Great.

I can't begin to express how irritating it is to read such articles/blog posts with "fucking" all over the text, even thought at home I probably say that word 10-20 times a day. But I'm not writing that for others to read.

And then we have this gem from PG:

"Informal language is the athletic clothing of ideas."

Really? If I talked like that to my friends or co-workers they'd be laughing at me for days.

To "write like I talk" I'd say: "what an arrogant fucking stupid shit statement."

Good bye HN.

Re: Write like you talk

#143

Post by vacri »

I think better advice is to know your message, know your audience, and write appropriately. If you're skilled enough to write flowery prose in the first place, then you're skilled enough to detect the appropriate level and write to it.

For example, there is a world of difference between troubleshooting a user problem verbally, directly in email, or writing a guide for the problem on a wiki. They all take different conversational styles.

Re: Write like you talk

#144

Post by Shog9 »

jschwartzi wrote: post #23
ruricolist wrote: post #7

If you can't say "mercurial Spaniard" to your friends, get new friends.

I find that if I need to use a word like mercurial it helps to add a four-letter word in proximity. It seems to aid digestion and thus cuts down on the commentary.

Certainly makes it more conversational. If I had a nickle for every time I've heard someone mutter "damn hg"...

Re: Write like you talk

#145

Post by fisk »

I don't know about "write like you talk", precisely, but I've noticed that some very good writing on technical subjects reads like you could give it as a talk, so there's something there about clarity.

Re: Write like you talk

#146

Post by gliese1337 »

stupidcar wrote: post #38

If you've ever read a verbatim transcript of an interview or conversation, you'll know that actual speech is anything but clear. When talking off the cuff, even the most clear minded people tend to ramble, um and ahh, double back, talk across each other, and jump between points and subjects. When listening to someone in person, our brains seem to edit what they say on the fly to make it comprehendible, focusing on th…

It is also good to note that what kind of editing your brain does- the standard that people accept for what clear speech is supposed to sound like, what they strive for and hear in their heads- changes over time. There is more than one way to clean up the exact same actual speech stream, and the cultural norms for the correct way to do it shift.

This is made most obvious when comparing dialogue between new and old movies (good ones, anyway- ones that had good popular contemporary reviews; comparing what people at the time considered badly-written stilted dialog tells you nothing). Everybody knows that preferred writing styles change, but movies document the changes in what people consider to be "normal sounding" speech over even relatively short periods of time (a few decades).

Re: Write like you talk

#147

Post by yomritoyj »

Paul Halmos in How to Write Mathematics says: “A good attitude to the preparation of written mathematical exposition is to pretend that it is spoken. Pretend that you are explaining the subject to a friend on a long walk in the woods, with no paper available; fall back on symbolism only when it is really necessary.”

Re: Write like you talk

#148

Post by darkerside »

stupidcar wrote: post #38

If you've ever read a verbatim transcript of an interview or conversation, you'll know that actual speech is anything but clear. When talking off the cuff, even the most clear minded people tend to ramble, um and ahh, double back, talk across each other, and jump between points and subjects. When listening to someone in person, our brains seem to edit what they say on the fly to make it comprehendible, focusing on th…

An example of pseudo-spoken tone from the article: "The fact that this seems worthy of comment shows how rarely people manage to write in spoken language."

That's a simple phrase to read, but I'm pretty sure it would fly right over my head if somebody dropped it in casual conversation.

Re: Write like you talk

#150

Post by callmeed »

Considering how many people now say the work "like" at least twice per sentence (especially young people), I don't think this is good advice without some caveats.
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