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Write Like You Talk (2015)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#131

Post by wyclif »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #51
tayo42 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw Stephen King in "On Writing" also says to not use a thesaurus and just use the words you already naturally know how to use. He follows on saying your vocabulary will naturally expand as you read more.

I agree with King on that. A thesaurus is great for finding words you know but don’t use often. Learning new words from it… you’re usually missing important nuance.

King is right about that. If you want to become a better writer, you need to read more good books with high quality prose and stop reading garbage. The thesaurus, while sometimes useful, can become a crutch. Stylistically the great writers will rub off on you if you read them carefully.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#132

Post by wyclif »

rongopo wrote: post #113
tayo42 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw Stephen King in "On Writing" also says to not use a thesaurus and just use the words you already naturally know how to use. He follows on saying your vocabulary will naturally expand as you read more.

Thesaurus is a fundamental tool of any good writer, to refine precise meanings without overdoing a bit. Denying this is certainly strange to me.

I don't think King was saying "never use a thesaurus", he was just pointing out that relying on it too much is not a good way to develop as a writer. The way you do that is by reading great books.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#133

Post by wyclif »

mikrl wrote: post #123
lamontcg wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the whole point of "fancy words" are to succinctly convey some nuance The vast majority of time the point of "fancy words" are for the author to display to the audience that they know the fancy words. Unless you really are genuinely talented at language and word choice, it often comes across as a transparent attempt to impress other people and often jars the reader out of the text.

Why use a fancy word like bad, terrible, frightful, or vexatious when you can use the easily understood and versatile ungood?

That is one of George Orwell's six principles of good writing in "Politics and the English Language", which ever writer should read.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#135

Post by seanhunter »

chromatin wrote: post #48
mr_sturd wrote: post #13

Whey if a wrert like a taa'ked, a divn't think anyone would kna what a wa' gaan an aboot...

What an absurd and pathetic characterization of Southern Mountain Speech and/or rural American dialect. It comes across as speaking more to your character than your polemic target.

It's Newcastle/Northumbrian in the UK, and it's not inaccurate at all.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#136

Post by seanhunter »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #28

The better than 95% of writers bit bugs me. It feels like looking at all of written history and saying everyone else was doing this wrong because they don't write simply enough.

PG is in no position whatsoever to judge this even if it were objective, which it isn't.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#137

Post by fsckboy »

jameshart wrote: post #100
freetime2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "mercurial" does the trick in the quoted example, does Paul have a patch? How about: He said "After Altamira, all is decadence." That is the way I would probably phrase it if spoken. Assuming of course that "he" is clear from the context - if not I would use the subject's name.

And if you wanted to attribute that sentiment to some aspect of his character and/or nationality? I can perfectly well imagine saying out loud, in conversation or in a spoken presentation, something like "Being the mercurial Spaniard that he was, Picasso said 'After Altamira, all is decadence'". I don't think there's anything wrong with the vocabulary choices here, but there is a kind of journalistic writing style wh…

> attribute that sentiment [mercurial] to some aspect of his character and/or nationality?

traditionally in the English speaking world, Spaniards would in general be described as mercurial (at least in the sense of being driven by passion) so saying "mercurial Spaniard" is more confusing than just saying Spaniard.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#138

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

alehlopeh wrote: post #124
auggierose wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what you did there, but I will bite: Orthogonal does not mean unrelated. Take two vectors in the plane. Them being orthogonal means that they have a 90 degree angle between them, so if you know the direction of one of them, the direction of the other one is severely restricted to two choices. So these vectors are very much RELATED. It's just that they are related in a way that makes them maximally different in…

Somewhat relatedly, I’ve never seen the word maximal used outside of HN and crypto rags.

They're both terms used in university level mathematics/CS courses, which folks in related industries are likely to have spent time in.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#139

Post by sameerds »

js8 wrote: post #78
tayo42 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw Stephen King in "On Writing" also says to not use a thesaurus and just use the words you already naturally know how to use. He follows on saying your vocabulary will naturally expand as you read more.

Not an english speaker, but I use thesaurus when I feel there might be a better fitting word or if I would repeat the same word several times.

I am sure this is out of context, but I regularly use a thesaurus to find names for patterns in my code/design/architecture. Applies to class names, variables, even functions.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#140

Post by dredmorbius »

tayo42 wrote: post #40
texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #4

> But perhaps worst of all, the complex sentences and fancy words give you, the writer, the false impression that you're saying more than you actually are. Disagree. When you're writing / reading, it's much easier to parse complex sentences. It's also much easier to express a cohesive, complex thought this way compared to a meandering, directionless sentence. And the whole point of "fancy words" are to succinctly con…

Fwiw Stephen King in "On Writing" also says to not use a thesaurus and just use the words you already naturally know how to use. He follows on saying your vocabulary will naturally expand as you read more.

John McPhee takes a different approach. Whilst he cautions against over-reliance on the thesaurus, he's a full-throated advocate of a good dictionary:

In the search for words, thesauruses are useful things, but they don’t talk about the words they list. They are also dangerous. They can lead you to choose a polysyllabic and fuzzy word when a simple and clear one is better. The value of a thesaurus is not to make a writer seem to have a vast vocabulary of recondite words. The value of a thesaurus is in the assistance it can give you in finding the best possible word for the mission that the word is supposed to fulfill. Writing teachers and journalism courses have been known to compare them to crutches and to imply that no writer of any character or competence would use them. At best, thesauruses are mere rest stops in the search for the mot juste. Your destination is the dictionary. Suppose you sense an opportunity beyond the word “intention.” You read the dictionary’s thesaurian list of synonyms: “intention, intent, purpose, design, aim, end, object, objective, goal.” But the dictionary doesn’t let it go at that. It goes on to tell you the differences all the way down the line—how each listed word differs from all the others.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/04/29/draft-no-4>

The point remains: to get the words right.

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