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I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

experimental-history.com

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Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#91

Post by patrickmay »

lordnacho wrote: post #33

As an old man I now think the art and humanities classes in school landed at the wrong time. You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it. S…

> You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it.

That suggests a need for better cooperation across subjects. In college I learned calculus at the same time as physics and the two reinforced each other. We should be aligning English reading requirements with what's being taught in history class.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#92

Post by cattenwallen »

Folcon wrote: post #42

There's an interesting part of this that's mentioned in the comments that the original author states: > Haha I had a section in this, but cut it, about how people jokingly suggest we should include one regular person in every Olympic event to show just how astounding Olympic athletes are, and this is also a good idea for art... I've been getting into fiction writing a bit recently and learning to focus on incremental…

Feedback is a gnarly problem because a lot of people assume this means "I, the reviewer, will criticize what I think will improve this work" and "I, the receiver, will receive suggestions to improve my work" but the reviewer and the creative will never have the same idea of what the WIP's ideal state looks like. So the feedback can be actively harmful to the creator. For example, if I'm a Mexican author writing about my abuela, and a feedback is "you should replace all these words with English", that's probably actively harmful to the vision of the work. But also sometimes the creator must be actively open to feedback that "hey, your abuela isn't a person in this story, she's just a female cardboard character" because it's probably a disservice to the vision to have a cardboard character clouded by the creator's nostalgia.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#94

Post by bluGill »

fluoridation wrote: post #78
krige wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yeah. Look no further than the "brevity is the soul of wit" quote. It's taken at literal value when, in context, you know it's a joke, a potshot at the expense of the character saying it, who's anything but brief in speech.

It sounds like it's still meant in earnest, then. That it's a self-deprecating joke doesn't detract from the sentiment.

I know a fair number long winded people who like that quote and have no clue it should apply to them despite repeating it often.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#95

Post by joemi »

legacynl wrote: post #12

Although I appreciate the article, what's the deal with calling depth thickness? Is it because it looks like the meme word 'thicc'? > If you allow for the existence of secret treasures that can only be accessed with effort and analysis, then you empower the elitists and the snobs. “Buddy, don’t even talk to me until you’ve been in the cave!” I don't agree with this statement. Being a snob and/or elitist means looking…

"Thick" already has a meaning of "dimwitted" so it's a particularly strange choice of word in this context. Is this something this new use of "thick" as a synonym for "deep" something this author is trying to coin, or is this already an established meaning among younger generations?

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#96

Post by jrm4 »

lordnacho wrote: post #33

As an old man I now think the art and humanities classes in school landed at the wrong time. You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it. S…

Wow. So I'm a college instructor (in IT) and you're nailing what I'm trying to defeat to the best of my ability. I do an intro class, and I think most everyone around me believes that my job is to "go over the technologies that are important to students."

And it's kind of like that, but overwhelmingly what I'm really doing is "I find technology to be endlessly fascinating and exciting and important, and here is both how and why, let me see if I can transfer this excitement to you."

If that's there, the learning just happens, that's the easy part.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#97

Post by bluGill »

magneticnorth wrote: post #60
pavel_lishin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It felt even worse when reading Shakespeare, which is nominally the same language you and I speak, but just barely. Add the fact that it's a play, where the performance carries a lot of the meaning. The end result was that I - and as far as I could tell, 99% of my classmates - got basically negative value out of sitting in class and reading lines we didn't understand out loud, without even time to try and parse it ou…

Yes, I agree completely with the Shakespeare point. I was lucky enough to have a close friend (also a teenager!) who really got Shakespeare. She would explain to me what was actually going on, and read it with the correct emphasis so you could mostly actually follow it. She is 100% of the reason that I was ever able to appreciate Shakespeare. You would hope that most teachers could do this, but in my experience it wa…

There is no correct way to read Shakespeare. There are many wrong ways, but don't let your friend's interpretation cloud you from the others. It is really magic when you see some other interpretation and understand both are right despite not being compatible.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#98

Post by joemi »

mbauman wrote: post #26
legacynl wrote: post #12

Although I appreciate the article, what's the deal with calling depth thickness? Is it because it looks like the meme word 'thicc'? > If you allow for the existence of secret treasures that can only be accessed with effort and analysis, then you empower the elitists and the snobs. “Buddy, don’t even talk to me until you’ve been in the cave!” I don't agree with this statement. Being a snob and/or elitist means looking…

> what's the deal with calling depth thickness It's almost as though the author thought about and cared about the content and exact words he chose. "Thick or Treat" and "Thickening agents" and "Slim pickings" even immediately evoking imagery of a thin slop gruel in my own head. By using an unexpected word I think I thought more critically about it, in fact. Had the author used depth I would've immediately had more su…

I think the fact that "thick" can mean "dim-witted" is proof that the author did not in fact choose their words carefully.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#99

Post by m463 »

lordnacho wrote: post #33

As an old man I now think the art and humanities classes in school landed at the wrong time. You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it. S…

I've always thought about that with history - it should be taught to people with enough life experience to realize the subtleties.

On the other hand, art class can teach personal creation to young folks, before it gets optimized away as you grow older in favor of consumption.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#100

Post by PsylentKnight »

schoen wrote: post #87
PsylentKnight wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, even the most famous line in all of Shakespeare, "wherefore art thou Romeo" is frequently misunderstood because many people reasonably assume "wherefore" means something like "where". Yes, you can figure it out from context, but the context is in the same archaic language. Very possible to untangle all that while you're reading it and perhaps it's a good mental exercise. But it can be really tough to keep up…

That speech is expressing an awesome idea: Juliet is saying that she loves Romeo-the-person, but she is terrified of her bad luck in that he happens to have a certain surname ("Montague") which will automatically cause her family to hate him. Which, indeed, they do. It's basically something like "why did I fall in love with such an inconvenient person?", together with "why does my family care so much about this thing…

Sure, but the archaic language can obscure the awesome idea. "Why are you Romeo?" may sound less poetic to modern ears, but isn't that how people back then would have parsed it - just as easily as everyday language, because it was their everyday language?

I feel like in a way we're losing Shakespeare's intended effect, because we insist on using a "language" that isn't used anymore. Yes, I understand that it's considered the same language, but a language isn't really one thing, it's more of a spectrum without sharp edges. Shakespeare is much closer in time to Middle English (which is considered a different language) than he is to our time

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