201–210 of 282 posts
Edit: Dropbox link – https://www.dropbox.com/sh/um4djdcdb5isw6y/AAAzF6Xm-PGrkJT3Z...
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…
It's obviously a good thing that normal people be enabled to understand as much as possible of the laws that govern them, even at the expense of a little wasted ink. (Unfortunately in British law being able to read the legislation often won't get you very far anyway, because of case law).
I usually agree with most of what you say PG, but in this instance I think you're wrong. Still, it was an interesting read nonetheless.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Few people use passive voice in conversations. Where did you get that from? Passive voice is extremely common in conversations. "He was acquitted of robbery" (passive) is probably more common than "The jury acquitted him of robbery" (active). "I was born in 1973" (passive) is much more common than "My mother gave birth to me in 1973" (active). "The X-Files was cancelled in 2002" (passive) vs. "Fox management cancel…
Passive voice is one of those things that really irks people for some reason, mostly because their grammar school teacher taught them so. It has a lot of legitimate uses, but the knee-jerk reaction it invokes in people is bizarre. For instance, there are many cases where one would want to de-emphasize the subject, or cases where the tone should be "passive" in the sense opposite from "aggressive". If you are arguing…
Technically true, because it's passive. But still, you'd be using "It was wrong to do that" because it becomes impersonal, more than passive.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the best (and incidentally, very recent) illustration of your point was seen an AMA by Bill Murray [1]. The Reddit mod was simply transcribing sentences as Bill was saying them. Soon after, /u/BillMurrayTranslator (some random guy) rewrote the exact same content in a more coherent, punctuated and editorialized manner. The difference in readability is stark! Bill's answers were quite hard to understand because…
The link you submitted seems to work for mobile only, for some reason I couldn't open it from my computer, so I give the non mobile version below [0]. Apart from that, I did compare a few of the original answers from Bill Murray and with their translated versions, but I don't think the translator makes it clearer, he just added some punctuation and some context (pause, laughs, etc.). [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA…
This is good advice, but I disagree with his example. The entire paragraph reads[0]: >The Upper Palaeolithic cave art of Europe was a tradition that lasted for perhaps 20,000 years and it will always be rightly described as primitive. But it is upon those anonymous artists' shoulders — giants' shoulders — that later masters like Picasso were able to stand. The mercurial Spaniard himself declared: 'After Altamira, all…
I actually like this a lot. He uses a conversational/informal style and it almost flows like a rehearsed piece of conversation: > it will always be rightly described as primitive. > . But it is upon those anonymous artists' shoulders — giants' shoulders — that He starts a sentence with But and puts dashes in for pause effects. Does he go a bit purply in his prose towards the end? Sure. I think that is the difference…
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…
Indeed, "write like you talk" is not quite the right way to go about it. In my experience that usually leads to a stream-of-consciousness mess. However, one thing I have found almost universally helps my students is similar: read what you have written OUT LOUD. Is it halting and hard to read? Confusing and obtuse? Then you should probably fix it. There seems to be some magic about actually speaking the words out loud…
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…
Indeed, "write like you talk" is not quite the right way to go about it. In my experience that usually leads to a stream-of-consciousness mess. However, one thing I have found almost universally helps my students is similar: read what you have written OUT LOUD. Is it halting and hard to read? Confusing and obtuse? Then you should probably fix it. There seems to be some magic about actually speaking the words out loud…
I sometimes use this when not writing anything that is destined to directly go to other people in order to help my understanding. When working on a confusing problem I try to write it down as if I was explaining it to another person, and verbalise in my head what I have written (I'm liking the TTS solution someone mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I might have to bring some headphones into work and try that). It is surprising how often making myself write down the problem as if explaining it to another person makes the blindingly obvious solution that I'm until that point missing (or just over complicating) jump out.
Thinking of the problem as if you have to explain it to someone (even if that someone is an imaginary friend version of myself) forces me to organise my thoughts in a more structured manner (this leads to that which causes the other because of the thing that does the things to the other things so I considered that update but that would conflict with function X... - for more complicated things I'll even draw myself a diagram) which highlights the parts I'm skipping over but shouldn't be.
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…
Indeed, "write like you talk" is not quite the right way to go about it. In my experience that usually leads to a stream-of-consciousness mess. However, one thing I have found almost universally helps my students is similar: read what you have written OUT LOUD. Is it halting and hard to read? Confusing and obtuse? Then you should probably fix it. There seems to be some magic about actually speaking the words out loud…
This right here. Anything I've written is read out load, and it's astonishing how many unclear sentences, head smashing obtuseness and general rubbish this picks up.