Would pay $5 for a Sublime Text Plug-in version.
Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear
281–290 of 335 posts
Re: Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
Glad to see the opinion of an actual professional writer rather than just someone with an opinion for the sake of it. I'm trying very hard to improve my writing at the moment and reading Zinsser's book. I understand what Zinsser is encouraging us all to do, but putting it in practise is over 30 years of un-learning that I need to do so it's not easy. I'm glad that you said the tool is useful because i was having doub…
That's a classic book!
Easily the best book on writing I've read. Closely followed by some research from the 60s on "process oriented writing" (I'm not sure if that's the accepted English term -- the material I read was in Danish). They essentially say the same thing: writing is re-writing -- and in that light, any tool that encourages you to look at what you've written again, and rethink it one more time, should help improve your writing.
[edit: Hemmingway himself has allegedly said "The first draft of anything is shit." -- but at least wikiquote has it as unsourced, so I'm not sure if the attribution is correct -- even if the idea probably is]
Re: Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear
#283Paul Graham's writing seems simple and direct to me, so I wondered how the website would treat one of his essays. Here are the suggestions from the third paragraph of http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html : "The most obvious difference between real essays and the things one has to write in school is that real essays are not exclusively (only) about English literature. (Sentence hard to read) Certainly (Adverb) schools…
Your version reminds me of "easy reader" editions of normal text -- or of an essay written by someone that's just learned how to write (a 6-7 year old?). It's fascinating how a few changes can change the "voice" of even such a short paragraph.
Anyway, great illustration both on how tweaking text can create contrasting changes, and how following "best practices" can be a bad thing. I suppose the original paragraph could actually be (slightly) improved by following some of the suggestions from the site, though. There's always room for improvement in any text.
Re: Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
This, and singular they[1], make me very happy indeed - all the people who "correct" my grammar are actually, themselves, wrong (or, at most, people waving an opinion in my face as if it were a fact.) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
There are a lot of prescriptive "rules" in English that aren't really rules. Ending sentences in prepositions is probably my favorite.
"This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put."
--Churchill (maybe)
Some discussion:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001702.h...
Re: Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear
#285You know what's fun? Pasting in text from Ernest Hemingway and seeing what he did wrong. But seriously, this is a nice, simple way to point out some general rules of thumb for improving writing, although I would love for it to be less proscriptive. Not every long sentence is a bad sentence, not every passive-voice sentence is a bad sentence, and not every adverb is a bad adverb. Oh, and by the way, the copy editor in…
OK OK I fixed it ;)
Re: Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear
#286Top scores in readability with these dramatic, bold, and above all, clear adjustments:
"Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear.
Hemingway shits on your long sentences. Fuck complexity.
Smack an adverb with blue. Get rid of them and pick verbs with force instead.
You can insert a shorter word in place of a purple one. Mouse over it for hints.
The passive voice sucks."
Re: Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing about pedantic snark (less/fewer), is that it loses its teeth when you're wrong. Even if you go in for prescriptive grammar, less and fewer were never strictly divided. The distinction actually came to us through one Mr. Baker's expressed preference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_vs._less#Historical_usage
While I don't think the proposed edit would help, the commenter isn't actually wrong - in modern usage, it is more correct to say "fewer corrections" than "less corrections." Language doesn't form in a vacuum, nor is its growth confined to dictionaries. Rather, language is a living, breathing thing and grammar is closer to history than mechanics. Consider the less v. fewer debate. Yes, several hundred years ago, it w…
Funny enough, try making that argument to a Russian. The argument that language is more history than science, and is fluid and ever-changing. Many words in Russian are commonly, and in most cases properly, pronounced one way, and yet spelled another. It's infuriating. Of course, what do I know, I have the privilege of having no native language. Borne in Ukraine, first spoke Russian, with Ukrainian accent, then learned Ukrainian, with a Russian accent, and now my primary language is English, with eastern european accent :)
Re: Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear
#288This could be the future of stylistic education in literature. If a tool existed to generate rules for this editor to follow, aspiring students could practice the writing styles of famous authors.
Of course, serious writers shouldn't model themselves after others. More specific areas would be the focus. Narrower subjects like technical writing might be promising, since they aren't particularly dependent on individuality in style.
Re: Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I don't think the proposed edit would help, the commenter isn't actually wrong - in modern usage, it is more correct to say "fewer corrections" than "less corrections." Language doesn't form in a vacuum, nor is its growth confined to dictionaries. Rather, language is a living, breathing thing and grammar is closer to history than mechanics. Consider the less v. fewer debate. Yes, several hundred years ago, it w…
Funny enough, try making that argument to a Russian. The argument that language is more history than science, and is fluid and ever-changing. Many words in Russian are commonly, and in most cases properly, pronounced one way, and yet spelled another. It's infuriating. Of course, what do I know, I have the privilege of having no native language. Borne in Ukraine, first spoke Russian, with Ukrainian accent, then learne…
Oh my god that sounds like me. Grew up speaking some Cantonese with parents in America, learned to speak English fluently with a Chinese accent, went to China and learned to speak a bit of Mandarin with a Cantonese/English accent, back in the U.S. and somehow along the way I've acquired an accent in Cantonese as well!
Re: Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear
#290I will make a chuck palahniuk app someday.