11–20 of 40 posts
> There’s a lot the biologists don’t know about these songs. Like, uh, their purpose. Is this really considered an acceptable way to write these days? Incredibly sad to hear how there are <30 whales in this region. Especially when listening to one's calls. Wonder what kind of whale-to-whale range these songs have.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes? It’s clear writing, it’s truthful and direct. You don’t like the style, but I’m sure there are many people who don’t like your preferred voice. The days of one acceptable voice in trade writing are gone, and that’s a good thing. It was creating a gate keeping effect whereby people who spoke well and clearly but not “right”—according to some ethnic cultural moors—were not taken seriously. Now everyone can be not…
I am all for using a more casual voice when writing about a subject for an audience outside of that particular domain of expertise. However, "Like, uh, their purpose." is grammatically and semantically meaningless. I am for using plain english to describe latin law terms. I am against colloquial, spoken styles slipping into written word.
How can something be grammatically meaningless? Further, because you're not able to understand the semantic meaning of a phrase does not mean it has no semantic meaning. I don't understand German--is German semantically meaningless?
> I am all for using a more casual voice
> I am against colloquial, spoken styles slipping into written word
Are these not contrary to one another?
> There’s a lot the biologists don’t know about these songs. Like, uh, their purpose. Is this really considered an acceptable way to write these days? Incredibly sad to hear how there are <30 whales in this region. Especially when listening to one's calls. Wonder what kind of whale-to-whale range these songs have.
Yes? It’s clear writing, it’s truthful and direct. You don’t like the style, but I’m sure there are many people who don’t like your preferred voice. The days of one acceptable voice in trade writing are gone, and that’s a good thing. It was creating a gate keeping effect whereby people who spoke well and clearly but not “right”—according to some ethnic cultural moors—were not taken seriously. Now everyone can be not…
> There’s a lot the biologists don’t know about these songs. Like, uh, their purpose. Is this really considered an acceptable way to write these days? Incredibly sad to hear how there are <30 whales in this region. Especially when listening to one's calls. Wonder what kind of whale-to-whale range these songs have.
Yes? It’s clear writing, it’s truthful and direct. You don’t like the style, but I’m sure there are many people who don’t like your preferred voice. The days of one acceptable voice in trade writing are gone, and that’s a good thing. It was creating a gate keeping effect whereby people who spoke well and clearly but not “right”—according to some ethnic cultural moors—were not taken seriously. Now everyone can be not…
Listen to Sun Ra, or Milford Graves, or Miles Davis. It's amazing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes? It’s clear writing, it’s truthful and direct. You don’t like the style, but I’m sure there are many people who don’t like your preferred voice. The days of one acceptable voice in trade writing are gone, and that’s a good thing. It was creating a gate keeping effect whereby people who spoke well and clearly but not “right”—according to some ethnic cultural moors—were not taken seriously. Now everyone can be not…
I am all for using a more casual voice when writing about a subject for an audience outside of that particular domain of expertise. However, "Like, uh, their purpose." is grammatically and semantically meaningless. I am for using plain english to describe latin law terms. I am against colloquial, spoken styles slipping into written word.
For brevity and that this is not a serious/academic article itself, the 'uh' is a suitable shorthand for a casual audience. I myself am not a fan but I do not claim it is semantically meaningless. I grasp the full meaning. I just don't agree with it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am all for using a more casual voice when writing about a subject for an audience outside of that particular domain of expertise. However, "Like, uh, their purpose." is grammatically and semantically meaningless. I am for using plain english to describe latin law terms. I am against colloquial, spoken styles slipping into written word.
> However, "Like, uh, their purpose." is grammatically and semantically meaningless How can something be grammatically meaningless? Further, because you're not able to understand the semantic meaning of a phrase does not mean it has no semantic meaning. I don't understand German--is German semantically meaningless? > I am all for using a more casual voice > I am against colloquial, spoken styles slipping into written…
Also, conflating dialects, verbal fillers, and languages is asinine and you know that is not what my original point was. Writing casually about an expert domain is like, uh, different than writing spoken word as written, ya know?
> There’s a lot the biologists don’t know about these songs. Like, uh, their purpose. Is this really considered an acceptable way to write these days? Incredibly sad to hear how there are <30 whales in this region. Especially when listening to one's calls. Wonder what kind of whale-to-whale range these songs have.
That's really bizarre phrasing. Maybe it was a botched attempt at a porpoise pun?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes? It’s clear writing, it’s truthful and direct. You don’t like the style, but I’m sure there are many people who don’t like your preferred voice. The days of one acceptable voice in trade writing are gone, and that’s a good thing. It was creating a gate keeping effect whereby people who spoke well and clearly but not “right”—according to some ethnic cultural moors—were not taken seriously. Now everyone can be not…
I am all for using a more casual voice when writing about a subject for an audience outside of that particular domain of expertise. However, "Like, uh, their purpose." is grammatically and semantically meaningless. I am for using plain english to describe latin law terms. I am against colloquial, spoken styles slipping into written word.
Compare to "Like, well, their purpose". I don't expect you'd have any problem with the word 'well' in that sentence but it serves pretty much the same semantic function as the 'uh'.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am all for using a more casual voice when writing about a subject for an audience outside of that particular domain of expertise. However, "Like, uh, their purpose." is grammatically and semantically meaningless. I am for using plain english to describe latin law terms. I am against colloquial, spoken styles slipping into written word.
> However, "Like, uh, their purpose." is grammatically and semantically meaningless. Compare to "Like, well, their purpose". I don't expect you'd have any problem with the word 'well' in that sentence but it serves pretty much the same semantic function as the 'uh'.
"Scientists still have a lot to understand about these songs, including their purpose" is a much better sentence.
The full stop in the article makes it sound like it's transcribing a speaker that didn't know what words to say next and made an unintentional pause. Or it's seeking to draw attention to how little scientists know in a rather flippant way. Like, totally disrespectful.
Maybe that's what resonates with the target readership, but for the rest of us it just sounds like a teenager, and I for one don't model my speech after teenagers