Hemingway is an app which makes terrible, and largely trivial stylistic advice.
Fortunately, the real Hemingway had no truck with following such terrible "rules":
Hemingway App now available
41–50 of 76 posts
Re: Hemingway App now available
#42Ironic that an app calling itself "Hemingway" would recommend against the word "Utilize". As a key example of "things to avoid" no less. Utilized in one of the more memorable exchanges in The Sun Also Rises: "Let us rejoice in our blessings. Let us utilize the fowls of the air. Let us utilize the product of the vine. Will you utilize a little, brother?" ... and so on for nearly ten pages, utilizing wine, pubs, etc. h…
I'm guessing the app is called Hemingway because it promotes simpler writing in general (a good thing, I think), not because it will make you write /exactly/ like Hemingway!
Re: Hemingway App now available
#43Ironic that an app calling itself "Hemingway" would recommend against the word "Utilize". As a key example of "things to avoid" no less. Utilized in one of the more memorable exchanges in The Sun Also Rises: "Let us rejoice in our blessings. Let us utilize the fowls of the air. Let us utilize the product of the vine. Will you utilize a little, brother?" ... and so on for nearly ten pages, utilizing wine, pubs, etc. h…
>Ironic that an app calling itself "Hemingway" would recommend against the word "Utilize".
>Utilized in one of the more memorable exchanges in The Sun Also Rises:
>"Let us rejoice in our blessings. Let us utilize the fowls of the air. Let us utilize the product of the vine. Will you utilize a little, brother?"
First of all, that's a character speaking, not Hemingway narrating. In the same book, Hemingway also writes in the voice of a Spanish laborer and other characters with patterns of speech that we would not ascribe to him.
Second, in that passage, Jake is playing off the French verb "utiliser". In essence, he's being ironic -- a favored pastime of the lost generation. So this is all dialogue, not Hemingway narrating.
You'd be hard pressed to find the word "utilize" in Hemingway's narration. (awaiting someone with a counterexample...3..2..1)
Re: Hemingway App now available
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you're one of those people who like to use "utilize." I've always thought the word is used willy-nilly by people with feeble minds in order to "sound fancy," but you seem like an alright guy. Could you tell me why you'd want to use "utilize" instead of "use"? Do you intend a different meaning e.g. make-use-of-in-unexpeded-way, or do you see them as synonyms? To me, it sounds horrible---a buzzword and a French-isis…
So you're one of those people who like to use "utilize." Far from it. Looks like this is the first time I've ever typed it: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=jasonkester+utilize#!/all/forever/... Hemingway is, though. A quick google search shows that he also has written "helpfully" a few times in his novels, which is another forbidden word in the app we're discussing. That's what we're doing, by the way: discussing a piece o…
"That's what we're doing, by the way: discussing a piece of software. Try not to get too worked up."
I see what you're doing. Good words.
Re: Hemingway App now available
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you're one of those people who like to use "utilize." I've always thought the word is used willy-nilly by people with feeble minds in order to "sound fancy," but you seem like an alright guy. Could you tell me why you'd want to use "utilize" instead of "use"? Do you intend a different meaning e.g. make-use-of-in-unexpeded-way, or do you see them as synonyms? To me, it sounds horrible---a buzzword and a French-isis…
So you're one of those people who like to use "utilize." Far from it. Looks like this is the first time I've ever typed it: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=jasonkester+utilize#!/all/forever/... Hemingway is, though. A quick google search shows that he also has written "helpfully" a few times in his novels, which is another forbidden word in the app we're discussing. That's what we're doing, by the way: discussing a piece o…
I think "helpfully" -- in a helpful manner -- is a fine word, nevermind the grammar marms. I suspect Hemingway did as well.
However, he tried to avoid words like "utilize" that he could easily replace with shorter, more powerful words without losing any expressiveness.
Re: Hemingway App now available
#46Ironic that an app calling itself "Hemingway" would recommend against the word "Utilize". As a key example of "things to avoid" no less. Utilized in one of the more memorable exchanges in The Sun Also Rises: "Let us rejoice in our blessings. Let us utilize the fowls of the air. Let us utilize the product of the vine. Will you utilize a little, brother?" ... and so on for nearly ten pages, utilizing wine, pubs, etc. h…
So you're one of those people who like to use "utilize." I've always thought the word is used willy-nilly by people with feeble minds in order to "sound fancy," but you seem like an alright guy. Could you tell me why you'd want to use "utilize" instead of "use"? Do you intend a different meaning e.g. make-use-of-in-unexpeded-way, or do you see them as synonyms? To me, it sounds horrible---a buzzword and a French-isis…
I don't know whether Hemingway liked using 'utilize' or not. But I expect he used different rules in writing dialogue than in writing narrative. Word usage in dialogue can be used to give us cues about the character speaking. E.g., that he's the sort of person who pontificates by using words like 'utilize'. (Word usage in narrative can even be used to give us cues about the narrator.) I don't know enough to tell whether that's what Hemingway was doing in the quoted dialogue. But good writers often violate usage rules when writing fiction that they'd normally apply to themselves, e.g., when writing an essay.
Re: Hemingway App now available
#47Say I wanted to start writing an e-book, would this be an acceptable editor? Does it output to PDF,.mobi formats? or should I go with something like LaTeX?
I'd use it for writing, but then copy over the text to something like Scrivener.
Re: Hemingway App now available
#48I wish this were a LibreOffice plugin...
[EDIT] I would pay for it too.
Re: Hemingway App now available
#49Say I wanted to start writing an e-book, would this be an acceptable editor? Does it output to PDF,.mobi formats? or should I go with something like LaTeX?
I'd use it for writing, but then copy over the text to something like Scrivener.
Thanks for the recommendation. Scrivener looks powerful.
Re: Hemingway App now available
#50Ironic that an app calling itself "Hemingway" would recommend against the word "Utilize". As a key example of "things to avoid" no less. Utilized in one of the more memorable exchanges in The Sun Also Rises: "Let us rejoice in our blessings. Let us utilize the fowls of the air. Let us utilize the product of the vine. Will you utilize a little, brother?" ... and so on for nearly ten pages, utilizing wine, pubs, etc. h…
>Ironic that an app calling itself "Hemingway" would recommend against the word "Utilize". >Utilized in one of the more memorable exchanges in The Sun Also Rises: >"Let us rejoice in our blessings. Let us utilize the fowls of the air. Let us utilize the product of the vine. Will you utilize a little, brother?" First of all, that's a character speaking, not Hemingway narrating. In the same book, Hemingway also writes…
"Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use"