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Write like you talk
- stillsut 11y agoI prefer to write like a man reading his powerpoint slides verbatim
- mcnamaratw 11y agoHueh! And that's how I naturally talk, too.
- pervycreeper 11y agoThe hardest thing about communication is clarity.
- mcnamaratw 11y agoYes. Clarity can creep up on you, and before you know it people can find your mistakes.
- idlewords 11y agoIf you're interested in becoming a better non-fiction writer, I can't over-recommend William Zinsser's "On Writing Well".
- haraball 11y agoThe only downside from reading and learning from this book is that you suddenly discover how much bad writing there is out there. ;)
- urs2102 11y agoI've always written essays on ideas, but it wasn't until when I wanted to start publishing my writing on a blog that I found this idea true. Often times flowery language can sacrifice the clarity of your prose for attempting to appear more thoughtful than you are. It's a lot like the Richard Feynman idea that if you can't distill something to a freshman lecture, you don't really understand it.[1] [1]: Feynman, Six Not-So-Easy-Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time
- _delirium 11y agoOpposite to you, I'm often wary of conversational writing for exactly that reason: "Attempting to appear more thoughtful than you are". Especially a certain style of very breezy, self-assured conversational writing, that doesn't have any nuance or caveats, and hand-waves over anything too technical or specific. Writers use that style to lay things out "like they really are". Let's boil down all this egghead complexity and get to what matters. No Harvard footnotes and overcomplicating things here, just straight talk. Malcolm Gladwell and David Brooks are effective users of that style of writing. Quite a few bloggers are, too. It produces this strange style that on the surface seems thoughtful, but doesn't really have much there.
- urs2102 11y ago> Let's boil down all this egghead complexity and get to what matters. You actually be may be right - this Gladwell style of writing is usually quite dangerous, because it does give the reader the sense that they really know what they are talking about, because they are "getting to what matters" (which is obviously very subjective). The one thing I will argue though is that simple writing communicates the author's point more effectively than using flowerly language. The writer may be wrong, but at least I have much clearer sense of what they mean. By getting to "what matters", I find it easier to determine that they have "what matters" wrong. It is easier to refute the central thesis if the argument is presented without cruft, rather than an argument where flowery prose clouds the thesis. I find that a mix of a conversational tone followed by technical details is usually the most effective for me. It's one of the reasons I appreciate mathematics within writing - it tends to be much more clear. Although I do think you are right about Gladwell & Co, I am refering more to MBA-speak - which tends to use large empty words to convey ideas which pretend to have more depth than they really do.
- joslin01 11y agoIt just depends upon your aims. If you're trying to convey an idea in hopes of transferring knowledge then yes -- write like you would talk to ease the others' cognitive load. If you're a fantasy writer, it would get pretty drab pretty fast if you spoke to me like how most people speak to me. In fact, it'd be downright boring if you structured all dialogue between characters in such a manner. You need the pomp to make sentences glimmer or express significance. I'm not sure what the thesis of this essay is since it starts out as "If you want more people to read what you write..." Well no, if you're a novelist, I wouldn't recommend this essay to you. And that's not just me being a pedant either; I think this whole essay is simply advice to CEOs who are trying to talk about their idea. The thing that "comes over most people" is actually them trying to actually express their real selves, which often gets clouded in day-to-day interactions with others. The idea that you should just shut this off is nonsense and a barrier to increased creativity. You can write in a creative fashion while still maintaining a simple delivery. Just look at Larry Wall.
- moron4hire 11y agoHemingway would disagree with you about novels.
- copperx 11y agoHemingway used simple language, not conversational style.
- _delirium 11y ago> If you're trying to convey an idea in hopes of transferring knowledge then yes -- write like you would talk to ease the others' cognitive load. Even for transferring knowledge, it depends a lot on what knowledge you're trying to transfer, and to whom. In scientific writing, the more pop-science the goal of the article, the more conversational the style should be, and vice-versa. In a paper by someone in my field written for other people in the field, a pop-science conversational style isn't helpful, and would increase the cognitive load. In that case, I want clarity, precision, and accuracy, which is often helped by using a more specialized language. This has been one of the main changes in science writing from earlier centuries. If you read 17th-century mathematics, it's actually trying to explain it all in a jargon-free conversational style, written as if you were having a parlor conversation about numbers. "Consider three whole numbers, such that the sum of the square of the first two equals the third", etc. This does not scale well and is error-prone.
- ruricolist 11y agoIf you can't say "mercurial Spaniard" to your friends, get new friends.
- l33tbro 11y agoTotally. I strongly disagree with the sentiment behind this article, which is odd considering how invaluable PG's advice usually is. I agree, nothing is more cringe than the misguided being overly-verbose. But dissauding the intelligent and capable from flexing their lexicon seems a little harsh. No Oscar Wilde or Robert Hughes? No thanks.
- rtehfm 11y agoI'd, gladly, substitute 'mercurial Spaniard' with an honest 'thank you'. To each their own when seeking friendship. Finding honest, humble friends, in my opinion, supersedes worldly, articulate fellows.
- jmduke 11y agoHonesty and vocabulary are not even loosely correlated. I agree that, given the choice between the two, you should choose honest, humble friends. But if you're ever judging someone's worthiness of friendship because of their Flesch–Kincaid score (whether it's too high or too low!), you're doing it wrong.
- jschwartzi 11y agoI find that if I need to use a word like mercurial it helps to add a four-letter word in proximity. It seems to aid digestion and thus cuts down on the commentary.
- Shog9 11y agoCertainly makes it more conversational. If I had a nickle for every time I've heard someone mutter "damn hg"...
- dot 11y agoI feel like us Swiss german people have a leg up here. We grow up writing anything personal in our dialect (a language that doesn't officially exist in written form), so we're used to writing like we talk. I wonder if it has an effect on our more formal, business-related writing.
- jmduke 11y agoThis is fairly popular advice, and I heard it at least a half dozen times at my (liberal arts) college. That's not to dismiss this post because its takeaway is commonplace: I agree with the sentiment. However, I think it's important to embrace the full implication of its thesis: Informal language is the athletic clothing of ideas. Athletic clothing is comfortable, it is functional, and it traffics in convenience. But people wear clothes for aesthetics, for culture, for dozens of reasons. When you optimize for, say, being as easily digestible by as many people as possible, you may reduce your nuance or your aesthetic or whatever. And words like mercurial tend to have unique depths and distinctions that keep them being used by the Neil Olivers of the world. That's a good thing. (As a minor aside that doesn't detract from his point: You'd feel like an idiot using "pen" instead of "write" in a conversation with a friend. Really? Some people just feel more comfortable in suits than in sweatpants. There's nothing wrong with that.)
- dannylandau 11y agoI remember reading one of Isaac Isimov's biographies, where he mentions that one of the critiques of his writing is that it is too simple. His response -- that's the way it is supposed to be!
- setpatchaddress 11y agoBeautiful quote on writing style from I, Asimov here: https://books.google.com/books?id=mATFyeVI7IUC&lpg=PT324&ots=ZYw64bISrI&dq=isaac%20asimov%20stained%20glass&pg=PT324#v=onepage&q=isaac%20asimov%20stained%20glass&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=mATFyeVI7IUC&lpg=PT324&ots...
- ikeboy 11y agoOrson Scott Card made a similar point in one of the intros to Ender's Game.
- singhrac 11y agoIn the same vein, if it helps your reader understand your point, use the most precise word that means what you mean to say and is easily understandable. Synonyms have differences, and the additional depth is helpful in many circumstances - this is the whole point of scientific 'jargon'. However, I don't think that conflicts with pg's overall point, perhaps just nitpicking his example. I do think that 'mercurial' has its uses.
- trjordan 11y agoIf you're going to do this, edit heavily afterwards. Most conversation is pretty redundant. Because not everybody hears every word, it's acceptable to say things a couple different ways in order to make sure you're understood. That's less OK in an essay or email, because it's assumed you considered everything you wrote. If you don't believe me, try transcribing an email instead of typing it. Simple transcriptions aren't good writing.
- whatafaaa 11y agoEspecially with email I value brevity over "natural" language. I spend time editing my written communications so others don't have to waste time getting to the meat of the message.
- tamaatar 11y agoFor general day to day stuff we all write, yes I agree. Hate reading emails and articles with a lot of unnecessary jargon. However, Writing- as in writing fiction,poetry,drama etc is an art. Just like a great painting, it is complex and it gives people an idea of the great mind of the author and what he thought of the book from his perspective. Imagine war and peace written in spoken language.:(
- criddell 11y agoI wish I could talk like I write. When I have a lot to talk about, I have a hard time not jumping around and end up being a little incoherent.
- cloudhead 11y agoYes, as long as you aren't writing about emotion or sensation or philosophy or psychology or anything deeply human.
- sparrish 11y agoPlease don't write like you talk. It's bad enough having to listen to them, I don't want to have to read the expletives as well.
- meow_mix 11y agoWriting style is an aesthetic: It should suit the subject matter. I wouldn't want to read Tolstoy in the athletic clothing of ideas. The article feels like an overgeneralization.
- noir-york 11y agoTo the contrary, I explicitly do not write the way I talk; they are very different mediums! Each is better suited to communicate different things / emotions. Writing gives me the freedom to edit, iterate and polish; something speech cannot do. I love both writing and speech/presenting - do not be reductionist and reduce writing to mere "written conversation".
- gus_massa 11y agoI think you are taking the article too literally. It's not that you must say something orally, use a computer automatic transcript and publish that, with all the errors and fillers. You should edit it heavily to fix errors and increase clarity, but the style should be like something you would say oraly. An uninformed reader must feel that it's just the transcript of an informal talk.
- skybrian 11y agoI like this sort of conversational writing style and it's my preferred style as well. But it's not actually much like natural speech. Anyone who's tried transcribing a recording of a conversation knows that they need to be cleaned up quite a lot to be readable. We don't actually talk in essay format. Writing this way takes practice and probably a lot of reading as well to understand what you can get away with. People don't start out just knowing how to do it. Many people's native dialects are pretty far away from this style, so "write like you talk" wouldn't have the same results for them.
- jfaucett 11y agoThe thing keeping me from agreeing with this is a qualifier. If it were "write like you talk when writing a X", where X could be substituted by tutorial, essay, lesson, etc. I think I'd be more inclined not to disagree here. But as it stands "write like you talk" cannot hold true across the board for the set of all writing goals that exists. For example just watch any Tarantino film (or read the scripts), none of those characters talk like Tarantino does, I really would not want to watch a film where Uma Thurman walks around talking like him either. Entire fields of writing would not exists if this statement were true: Poetry, Rap, Music, Marketing slogans ("Think Different"), many types of Comedy, etc. EDIT: After a reread it looks he does suggest a qualifier, which is basically the general use case, which appears to be when "you want people to read and understand what you write" ie. informative essays, tutorials, emails that would occur in normal or every day communication situations, in which case I would agree.
- bbarn 11y agoI had to look up "abstruse". I understood it's meaning from context, but wasn't sure if it was a portmanteau of abstract and obtuse, or an actual word. I've honestly never heard it in my life, and wouldn't stop someone saying it in a sentence, but it did stop my reading. That made me wonder, does the fact that you sometimes have to listen to the spoken word over-estimate the impact the same words will have when written?
- benjiweber 11y agoNever read http://abstrusegoose.com/ http://abstrusegoose.com/ ?
- dredwerker 11y agoAbstruse - Big in the early 1800s according to the Google Ngram Viewer. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&case_insensitive=on&content=abstruse&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cabstruse%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_e...
- ci5er 11y agoI use this word a lot in written critiques of way-too-clever segments of code at review time. Is there a better word to use instead in this situation?
- teachingaway 11y agoThis x 10 for legal documents. Simplify them please.
- optionalparens 11y agoI agree, simplifying would be great. You do realize, however, that a large part of the legal profession is to intentionally write broadly, imprecisely, and flexibly to avoid traps. Other kinds of legal writing are intentionally precise in some clauses so as to add complexity to deliberately avoid immediate comprehension.
- grandalf 11y agoIn the manner of discourse such as you have exemplified with your comments under your current pseudonym, it is difficult to ascertain your intended trop, voice, or topic. Thus, I hereby request that you rephrase in a more course or colloquial or blunt manner.
- optionalparens 11y agoYour sense of humor is dizzying and perhaps difficult to find. If you want more blunt - I speak multiple languages at native or near native level, including two since birth. Spoken English, especially by your average American is rarely to the point, clear, and pleasant. Don't write like you speak, because the average person sucks at it. Instead, know your subject and audience and write to them. Avoid overgeneralizing because it's easy to make an ass of yourself like PG. Regarding legalese, it is hard to understand and that is intentional. Could it be any clearer for you or will you down-vote again?
- g0v 11y agoI think there is absolutely a place and time for writing the way you talk and that the same goes for writing formally. The discussion of when and where for either case is a topic in and of itself.
- roghummal 11y ago>Thanks to Jessica Livingston for reading drafts of this. Did she read drafts without contributing to them?
- colund 11y agoPaul Graham says "ummm" a lot. Luckily for us he doesn't write like he talks. However, as others have said, the important thing is to write naturally and with clarity to get the message across.
- forrestthewoods 11y agoThis is exactly how I write. It works great. Except in college where English teachers mark down your paper for stupid reasons. Many good, powerful speeches have repetition. Using the same word to end three sentences in a row. This can make for a great speech. It does not make for a good school grade. Oops.
- devinhelton 11y agoPG is on to something here, which is that when most people try to make their prose better, they do it the wrong way. They make the language stilted, they add silly descriptions (such as "the mercurial Spaniard"). But, writing is different from speech, and you can learn techniques specifically to make your writing better. I highly recommend Steven Pinker's new book "The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century" http://amzn.to/1LVI7eJ http://amzn.to/1LVI7eJ He has many concrete tips for improving your writing.
- simondedalus 11y agothis is true in general, but it bears noting that highly specialized fields need jargon. there's nothing wrong with using a word "in a technical sense," nor is there anything wrong with leaning on connotation to help orient your interlocutor. writing and speaking are like anything else: use the right tool for the job. when i talk to people outside of analytic philosophy, i can't use various technical terms to talk about wittgenstein's thoughts on language. i can talk about them, but it takes longer. like, a lot longer.
- stupidcar 11y agoIf you've ever read a verbatim transcript of an interview or conversation, you'll know that actual speech is anything but clear. When talking off the cuff, even the most clear minded people tend to ramble, um and ahh, double back, talk across each other, and jump between points and subjects. When listening to someone in person, our brains seem to edit what they say on the fly to make it comprehendible, focusing on the important bits and forgetting the rest. When it's presented in written form, such as in a newspaper or magazine article, a skilled journalist has usually done the editing for us. This means that what we consider a “conversational” tone in written language is not a representation of natural communication so much as an idealised version of it. That doesn't mean it isn't useful to strive for it, particularly in business and academic writing that otherwise tends towards the turgid, but it isn't as simple as telling people to “write how you talk”. Writing conversational prose that achieves clarity whilst not being oversimplified, patronising or banal requires practice and skill. I also think, conversely, that while a conversational tone can improve formal writing about complex topics, the reverse can be true. It's possible to enliven mundane topics by being less direct and more playful with language.
- flashman 11y agoThis is a very good point, because when you're talking, like you'd talk to another person I mean, your turn at speaking generally flows into a single large sentence, which is typical turn-taking behaviour, because in a conversation the other person is always looking for cues that it's their turn to speak, and so you ah have to keep going even if it means you've wandered away from your original point.
- chirau 11y agoI see what you did there, you wrote how you talk :)
- PantaloonFlames 11y agoWhich is very interesting, because, in many cases you'll find people who are presenting to large groups, say, an auditorium full of people, or even just a conference room of willing attendees, in a situation in which the speaker is expected to speak at some length , and it is understood and to be expected that the audience will remain silent in order to receive the message, even in those cases, speakers will continue to use the your-turn, my-turn habits of speech, with the blank-filling um's and ah's and so on.
- dreeves 11y agoFunny, I just wrote "The Out-Loud-To-Your-Friend-Constraint For Writing" -- http://expost.padm.us/outloud http://expost.padm.us/outloud (It's kind of self-indulgent musing on the idea of constraints for writing.) And for customer support we call this the BFF Heuristic -- http://blog.beeminder.com/curtain http://blog.beeminder.com/curtain Excerpt: "If you read what you've written to a user out loud and it's possible to tell that it's not being spoken to your best friend, rewrite it. No exaggeration -- I treat that as a hard rule. It also helps get replies out quicker, once you're used to it."
- err4nt 11y agoThis is really great advice and I meant to hit tbe up arrow friend, but I'm not sure which arrow I tapped and now I can't see or correct it :/ I really like the idea of the BFF heuristic, but I also think people should try to read writing, especially emails, as though they are coming from a BFF too! I've seen time after time where a friend reads an email, and each time they reread it theh get more angry, but when I look at it there's no offense to be found. If you have a negative opinion of somebody its easy to read everything theh write as a personal attack
- dreeves 11y agoAbsolutely. In fact, that's the next piece of advice in that blog post. Excerpt: "The best-friend heuristic has another benefit: If a user is ever frustrated or annoyed or hostile, put on rose-colored glasses and willfully reinterpret their tone as helpful and constructive -- something your friend would say because they genuinely want to help you improve -- and respond with the appropriate tone of gratitude."
- pedalpete 11y agoHow about documentation? I was thinking about this the other day, as I was documenting an api, and I was writing as if I was speaking, explaining how I thought about the problem rather than just the end-point details. How do people feel about this. Here's an example, but I didn't push the updates I made yesterday. https://github.com/favor/it https://github.com/favor/it When I wrote for the high school paper, people always commented on how my writing was as if I was just having an conversation with them, so I've always tried to write that way, but I'm not sure it works for all formats.
- amk_ 11y agoThe linked documentation bounces between using 'I' and 'you' as subjects for examples. Get rid of the references to yourself in the docs -- the documentation should be neutral. Take the reader's perspective if a subject is required. In day to day business like setting development priorities or responding to issues on Github, you can use 'I'.
- pedalpete 11y agothanks for the feedback, I just wasn't sure about tone in docs, it's the first time I've really had to document something like this for public consumption. I will redo it.
- strathmeyer 11y agoYou can use Google-Translate to read your writing back to you.
- mcnamaratw 11y agoGood point. Sounds obvious now that you point it out but I hadn't thought of it.
- reirob 11y ago"It seems to be hard for most people to write in spoken language. So perhaps the best solution is to write your first draft the way you usually would, then afterward look at each sentence and ask "Is this the way I'd say this if I were talking to a friend?" ..." The trick that works for me is setting the font-color to be the same as the background color, blak on black for example. Then you can write without being able to go back and correct what you've written. With the result, that you will write almost the way as you speak. Requires touch typing though. I even made a colorscheme for Vim for this and using it when writing in my diary or personal emails. Does wonders.
- ust 11y agoOn an unrelated note - orthography... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Christoph_Adelung https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Christoph_Adelung
- aWidebrant 11y ago"Write like you talk" is bad advice twice: It encourages rambling, which - unlike in a conversation - the reader has no means to interrupt, and it offers no clear rules to follow while writing. Orwell's six[1] are, in my experience, much more useful: (i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. (ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do. (iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. (v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. (vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. [1] https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
- mildbow 11y agoHere's where I think pg is coming from: 1) you are going to be writing about something you know 2) you are going to be writing to "people like you" 3) you are going to be read by, maybe as a product of 1 and 2, people at your order of expertise. Given these qualifications, it's always best to write in a conversational tone using words you would normally use. With that in mind, going through your points: (i) most people don't use metaphors that are predominantly seen in print in an conversation. (ii) Tricky. I think this depends on the audience. Sometimes, used well, this leads to prose that flows better. I think a better rule would be: use the word that fits with the tone and content. (iii) Agreed! (iv) Yup. Few people use passive voice in conversations. Maybe the same ones who disregard (i). (v) Again, this depends on your audience. Obviously, Orwell (or any mainstream-ish writer), would have a lower common denominator than your audience. (vi) haha. But, yeah, I like pg's suggestion because it is .. well.. more succinct: easier to remember 1 guideline than vi rules :)
- _delirium 11y ago> Few people use passive voice in conversations. Where did you get that from? Passive voice is extremely common in conversations. "He was acquitted of robbery" (passive) is probably more common than "The jury acquitted him of robbery" (active). "I was born in 1973" (passive) is much more common than "My mother gave birth to me in 1973" (active). "The X-Files was cancelled in 2002" (passive) vs. "Fox management cancelled the X-Files in 2002" (active). Even very colloquial phrases like, "The Cubs got wrecked in that series." Etc. [Edit to expand/clarify examples.]
- alecdbrooks 11y agoThis is good advice, but I disagree with his example. The entire paragraph reads[0]: >The Upper Palaeolithic cave art of Europe was a tradition that lasted for perhaps 20,000 years and it will always be rightly described as primitive. But it is upon those anonymous artists' shoulders — giants' shoulders — that later masters like Picasso were able to stand. The mercurial Spaniard himself declared: 'After Altamira, all is decadence.' Sure, for maximum clarity, Neil Oliver could have written more like he talks. But this paragraph is clear enough and written in an appealing style. It might not be Paul Graham's favorite style, but that doesn't make it bad writing. I also think the sentence he picked is particularly unconversational, which is misleading for two reasons. One, it makes Oliver's style sound more opaque and formal than it actually is. Two, even in a more conversational style than Oliver's, you're occasionally going to include something that's a step more formal. I think Graham knows this, albeit unconsciously. Would he really say "Informal language is the athletic clothing of ideas" in a conversation? Probably not, but it reasonably passed his read aloud test because it's a good distillation of his point. [0]: https://books.google.com/books?id=1Uk0AgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22A+History+of+Ancient+Britain%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMImOmc8dDeyAIVReEmCh3bugxv#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=1Uk0AgAAQBAJ&printsec=fron...
- vonklaus 11y agoI actually like this a lot. He uses a conversational/informal style and it almost flows like a rehearsed piece of conversation: > it will always be rightly described as primitive. > . But it is upon those anonymous artists' shoulders — giants' shoulders — that He starts a sentence with But and puts dashes in for pause effects. Does he go a bit purply in his prose towards the end? Sure. I think that is the difference between writing and conversation though. You can write well, explain your points and have a simple flow using the a comfortable tone. e.g. not forcing absurd 10cent works into your works and being unnecessarily complex. However, you can use a sentence structure like: > The mercurial Spaniard himself declared: 'After Altamira, all is decadence.' For dramatic effect. Author departs from his clean flow to qoute somebody who speaks differently than himself. And it looks like the mercurial spanaird talks funny which is underscored by the authors' change in tone.
- Houshalter 11y agoI found a very useful tool for writing clearer: http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
- subdane 11y ago“Any story hits you harder if the person delivering it doesn’t sound like a news robot but, in fact, sounds like a real person having the reactions a real person would.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/fashion/npr-voice-has-taken-over-the-airwaves.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/fashion/npr-voice-has-take...
- davidf18 11y agoRead Strunk & White: Elements of Style http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/dp/020530902X/ http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/d... There are many examples about how to write clearly.
- colindean 11y agoEvery good writer has a copy of Strunk & White within arm's reach.
- darkr 11y agoThe crux of this argument was explored with more eloquence and substance by Orwell in his essay Politics and the English Language[1]. I also agree with some of Orwell's critics, that these rules only hold water for pursuasive and/or [mildly] polemic writing, which is largely the style of tech blogging. Personally I would like to see more tech writing in the Joycean tradition. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Lan...
- triplesec 11y agoPG is writing about getting people to read your nonfiction words. There is a place for other things, but he's talking about getting across a simple message, or making comprehensible more complex ones. In this, the advice, old as the hills, is sage and useful. However, he omits to say that for other purposes, and other audiences - like this one, for example - if you want a nuances, thoughtful and colourful conversation, exploring more layers of meaning and implication, don't just use the ten hundred words people use the most often. https://xkcd.com/1133/ https://xkcd.com/1133/ For if you do, once the XKCD comedy is over, we end up in a very dull Newspeak place indeed.
- ageofwant 11y agoNot one mention of Strunk and White: "Elements of Style" in a piece about writing ? Paul Graham does not know shit about writing.
- logicallee 11y agoIf you keep making comments like this one, which is in a totally inappropriate style, you will end up being silently banned from HN (I mean that this sometimes happens, I didn't downvote you); which is a shame judging from your other brief and on-point comments. This really isn't reddit.
- dingo_bat 11y agoWhat is inappropriate about the style? This is a genuine question. I am not a native speaker and I think I might be missing something that is obvious to you.
- niyazpk 11y ago"Paul Graham does not know shit about writing" is inappropriate. It is not something (I hope) you would say to someones face. We should not lose our civility just because we can be anonymous here. Also, >> Not one mention of Strunk and White: "Elements of Style" in a piece about writing? Is it a reasonable expectation that every article about writing should mention "Elements of Style"? If one article doesn't mention it, is it reasonable to imply that the author "does not know shit about writing"?
- etanol 11y agoSpoken language is backed by other optional channels of information: * Audio: speaker controls tone, speed and emphasis * Video: body language * Feedback: listener can acknowledge reception or ask for repetition Written language has more time to be composed and it usually has the possibility of being ammended before submission. Therefore, I always considered natural the difference between spoken and written language styles. On a less picky opinion: agreed, complex ideas should not be written in complex language.
- ninjakeyboard 11y agoDepends on the tone that you want to set. For a blog etc I think conversationalist tone is fine. Even fast design docs can benefit from a conversationalist tone. Trying to write a big technical design doc w/ that tone wouldn't fit though IMO so you have to evaluate case by case.
- nemoniac 11y agoIn fairness, Neil Oliver talks like that all the time. If I were having a chat with him over a pint and he described someone as a "mercurial Spaniard", I wouldn't bat an eyelid.
- gopowerranger 11y agoMost of the comments, here, are taking the statement too literally. What he means is to write sentences in a way you would in normal conversation and not try to be a writer of linguistic elocution. Don't use abbreviations, long words we may not know, pretending to be Hemingway. Too many pretend to be Hemingway when they should write like Brian Kernighan at least.
- johnchristopher 11y agoHN really jumps the shark best when it swaps definition of words to support whatever it wants to support. Hemingway's writing style was far from being convoluted.
- gopowerranger 11y agoWho said Hemingway was convoluted? Certainly not me.
- qohen 11y agoWhat he means is, you said this: Don't use abbreviations, long words we may not know, pretending to be Hemingway. But Hemingway is the poster-boy for a style that is the exact opposite [0]: Basically, his style is simple, direct, and unadorned, probably as a result of his early newspaper training. He avoids the adjective whenever possible, but because he is a master at transmitting emotion without the flowery prose of his Victorian novelist predecessors, the effect is far more telling. [0] http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/for-whom-the-bell-tolls/critical-essays/hemingways-writing-style http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/for-whom-the-bell-to...
- qohen 11y agoBy the way, for anyone who's interested, Hemingway was not only a syntactic minimalist (i.e. using simple language) but also a semantic minimalist -- he chose to leave things out of his stories, which he likened to icebergs, where only the top is visible, but whose bulk can be inferred if the writer has done his job properly -- this is his so-called "Iceberg Theory" of writing [0]: In 1923, Hemingway conceived of the idea of a new theory of writing after finishing his short story "Out of Season". In A Moveable Feast, his posthumously published memoirs about his years as a young writer in Paris, he explains: "I omitted the real end [of "Out of Season"] which was that the old man hanged himself. This was omitted on my new theory that you could omit anything ... and the omitted part would strengthen the story." In chapter sixteen of Death in the Afternoon he compares his theory about writing to an iceberg. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg_Theory#Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg_Theory#Definition
- SHIT_TALKER 11y agoNo thanks.
- optionalparens 11y agoThis has to be some of the worst advice I have seen on HN, an achievement in itself. I have lurked here a long time and this article is so stupid and poorly written I actually am taking the time to register. Simplifying your writing is an effective technique for certain styles and genres. Moreover, it is indeed true that some people speak more eloquently than they write. Conversely, one must acknowledge that the opposite is true. Advising people to write as they speak is overgeneralizing and even harmful in many cases. Anecdotally, I find most people do not speak very clearly. I grew up bilingual and I find the average spoken English to be particularly imprecise and sloppy, especially compared to other languages. Written English, on the other hand has many subtleties, rules, structure, and formalities that aid most kinds of writing. On a personal level, written English is far more pleasurable, efficient, and expressive to me. Again, there are some types of writing that can benefit from disregarding formalities and drawing from spoken English. Dialogue is one obvious example where the benefits of writing as one might speak can be an asset, however Graham's article I suspect is not really trying to make you a better novelist. Ironically, writing dialogue in ways that it might not be spoken often produces more engaging content to anyone with even a passing appreciation for skilled writing. It is precisely because characters might say something we would never that we might find them intelligent, interesting, or find another quality that makes us react strongly and in a polarizing way to a character. The same holds true to other types of writing - we write a certain way to make content clear, but also at times interesting, engaging, and fulfilling. The problem with a lot of written English is that most people do not know basics, let along actual writing techniques. Notice in Graham's article he manages to commit dozens of mistakes despite revealing that someone else proofread. For instance, Graham uses the same word twice in a row in his first paragraph, writes redundantly in a crafted article about writing, and abuses paragraphs. There are other mistakes as well, but the larger point is that Graham is presenting himself as an authority on writing technique, and yet would have received a poor grade from any of my teachers. Lowering your writing standards and abusing the English language to address inept or illiterate readers is not quality advice. Every writer must think of their intended audience and indeed write towards them. Insulting your audience by assuming they are stupid is not a solution. Rather, writing clearly by reducing complexity is a well-explored topic that has few direct linkages to spoken English and general vernacular, colloquialisms, and informalities. You can find dozens of books on the subject and even algorithms that will process your writing, searching for complexities. As a final note, I now live abroad most of the year and encounter many Americans, Brits, Aussies, and other "Anglo" ex-pats. I have fluency in the local language and I often play the role of translator from spoken English to non-Anglos, in English to people with near native level proficiency in English. In other words, I translate English to English because so many people do not speak clear, understandable, and engaging English. I rarely am asked about written English from anyone remotely competent as writer. There is often overlap between the two, such as in the workplace. Paul Graham should be ashamed for providing such bad advice. I am sorry, but this article comes off as lordly pseudo-academia from someone who may be a decent investor but is surely not a good writer. I have been reading things from Paul Graham for years and while the subjects sometimes are not bad, he is a terrible writer. I can respect certain things about Graham, but his writing and desire to abuse his position to spout nonsense is not one of them. Please stick to investing hoards of cash and stop planting dangerous seeds in your younger audience members in particular.
- archildress 11y agoSeth Godin said something really similar, and I've drawn on it during periods of writer's block many times: >No one ever gets talker's block. No one wakes up in the morning, discovers he has nothing to say and sits quietly, for days or weeks, until the muse hits, until the moment is right, until all the craziness in his life has died down. Why then, is writer's block endemic? The reason we don't get talker's block is that we're in the habit of talking without a lot of concern for whether or not our inane blather will come back to haunt us. Talk is cheap. Talk is ephemeral. Talk can be easily denied.
- birbal 11y ago"Informal language is the athletic clothing of ideas" The irony in this sentence from the article is breathtaking.
- logicallee 11y agoDo you mean because it's a great sentence in the context of this essay (maybe the best one in it), but you judge that you couldn't get away with saying it verbatim in conversation? (If you were explaining the idea in this essay?) Or please explain.
- birbal 11y agoI actually love the sentence but I wouldn't expect it in spoken english. (That part is ironical in the sense that it goes against the core of the article.. Seems like an exception that proves the rule). Written word gives the reader more time to absorb the content than spoken word and hence I feel it is OK to use metaphorical language to make the point and make the reading experience delightful. But Paul's point is well taken that it's better not to use flowery language for most of the time. It takes a lot of skill to not go overboard with that thing.
- logicallee 11y agoYes, you make a good point. Also, since the reader can glance up and down the page, you don't have to repeat parts you have just stated very clearly, to make sure they're still with you, as you might while you talk. (You can do it briefly however.) In all, I expect my books to sound quite different from spoken conversation, for a variety of reasons.
- vonnik 11y agoThe PG headline is really the first half of a larger sentence: Write like you talk, and try to talk in concise, plain language. If you have trouble doing this, the Hemingway App might help. http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ There are a lot of problems with the way people write. Some writers are too writerly, some are trapped in journalese or legalese, most are too vague. But better than any -ese is being able to communicate complex ideas to intelligent outsiders in a shared, common language. To do that, you have to think a lot about what your main points are, how they connect, and what your readers will probably misunderstand. Then you address that. You answer questions before they are asked. Sure, there are other ways to write. I like a good dose of purple prose, or 19th-century Russian fiction. But it probably doesn't belong in a memo. In the end, you shouldn't write like you talk, because as many others have said here, talking is messy. The real trick is to write in a way that makes people think you're talking to them. The writer finds tricks that make it seem like she's talking, even though speech has been translated to the page. Then the reader can hear your voice, and there's nothing getting in the way.
- mosquito24 11y agoCompletely agreed. I know that when I try to make important points on the fly, I'm more than likely to ramble and not speak entirely eloquently, but it seems clear that what PG is saying is ultimately just "Don't confuse your reader by trying to sound to smart."
- visakanv 11y ago> Some writers are too writerly, some are trapped in journalese or legalese, most are too vague. But better than any -ese is being able to communicate complex ideas to intelligent outsiders in a shared, common language. Agred. And this is something that is taught, rather than in-born. Most people pick up their writing skills in school, where big words and long sentences can give you better marks than a simple, heartfelt explanation. It takes a long time and a lot of practice to shake this off.
- robbfitzsimmons 11y agoCame here to recommend Hemingway. Even if you keep these values in mind, with a linter it's much easier to do. I haven't yet found a Chrome extension which does Hemingway-esque linting on all text input fields, like Gmail or (god forbid) comment sections. Somebody (maybe me) should make this.
- unclesaamm 11y agoRather than taking writing advice from a programmer/venture capitalist, I recommend Steering the Craft, by Ursula Le Guin, which will help ground any writing you might do in solid understanding of the "tools" you have available as a writer-- pace, grammar, the sound of words, and so forth
- philwelch 11y agopg was a published technical writer and widely read essayist before Y Combinator.
- unclesaamm 11y agowhich is perhaps why he can "write as he talks", and get away with it. He honed his craft. I work with a few programmers who write exactly as they talk, and it is littered with misplaced, dangling modifiers, and misspellings of things like "bury the lead" vs "bury the lede". The overall structure of arguments is haphazard too. Writing is hard, and I think the best way to get better is to write things that you _want_ to get taken more seriously than just as if you were talking.
- wfo 11y agoHe can get away with it because he founded the company that owns this well-respected discussion forum; he can say whatever he wants and people will at the very least read it. It is a credit to his hard work in the industry and the even harder industry of online community-building that the community surrounding Y Combinator can sniff out a truly bad essay like this one (especially difficult when so many of his essays are so excellent) and call him out on it as they generally have here.
- grandalf 11y agoIt's not exactly how you talk. It's just not flowery and embellished and wandering. People really don't read. They don't care. They don't have time. Keep it simple and they might read part of it.
- entelechy0 11y agoNo shit sherlock anyone with half a fucking brain cell knows this
- dang 11y agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines.
- LordHumungous 11y agoHemingway had a thing or two to say about this. >I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.
- mhartl 11y agoOne important difference between written and spoken language is that in the former case readers have the luxury of looking words up in a dictionary if they don't know them. When speaking, I'm careful to avoid words I suspect might not be understood by my listeners, but when writing [1] I generally use the most precise word I can think of, even if I expect some readers won't know it. (Indeed, for particularly tricky words I'll often link the dictionary definition myself.) [1]: Examples include http://railstutorial.org/book http://railstutorial.org/book, http://tauday.com/tau-manifesto http://tauday.com/tau-manifesto, and http://learnenough.com/command-line-tutorial http://learnenough.com/command-line-tutorial
- ff_ 11y agoA quite common way of saying in Italy is: "Parla come magni", which literally means "Speak the way you eat" [1], and it is used in conversations to mean exactly what Paul says, to "keep it simple". [1]: http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/parla-come-mangi.197573/ http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/parla-come-mangi.1975...
- whitneyrzoller 11y agoWhat's wrong with "mercurial Spaniard"?
- joseakle 11y agowhen i first read Saramago [1], i was impressed how he wrote with no punctuation or even capital letters, and how enjoyable and easy to read it was, it was definitely a breath of fresh air, only a few times it was hard to follow the story, mainly on dialogues i sometimes got lost who was saying what, overall his writing style made reading his novels a lot of fun, my feeling was more like listening to someone tell me a story directly, rather than having to get hold of the rhythm and style of the writer. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Saramago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Saramago
- archagon 11y agoOn the contrary, I write because I don't talk so well. When I try to explain an idea in person, it usually comes out jumbled and half-formed. In contrast, when I sit down to write it out, it becomes much more clear on both sides of the conversation, even if it sounds a bit robotic. Many people I know are exceptionally good at talking precisely and at length about their interests. Sometimes I envy them. I've always wished I could spin out my thoughts at their speed. But I don't really think in sentences. Many of my ideas exist in a sort of impressionistic cloud that takes a lot of energy to translate into conversation. In that sense, writing is as much a form of physical thought as it is a tool of idea dissemenation. Nonetheless, it's an interesting exercise to record a first draft of a long essay into a microphone and mine it for intersting bits of prose. I should really try it more often!
- sgustard 11y agoHere's a transcript of a Paul Graham speech. http://genius.com/Paul-graham-lecture-3-counterintuitive-parts-of-startups-and-how-to-have-ideas-annotated http://genius.com/Paul-graham-lecture-3-counterintuitive-par... So yeah, it's conversational in that he uses words like "noob" and "dude" and "bullshit". And yes, Google finds examples of his written works that use these words too. But not everyone talks like Paul; perhaps Neil Oliver says things like "mercurial Spaniard" when he talks. It's kind of a nice feature of language that different people can use words differently. I'd rather Paul's examples were more of the corporate anti-speak variety like "maximizing synergies" and the like.
- pmjordan 11y agoAgreed, it seems a really poor example used to make a fair point. I've never spoken to Neil Oliver personally, but on TV programmes he presents (Coast, etc.) he certainly uses flowery, poetic language. I don't think it's an act, it seems to come naturally to him, and it doesn't even clash with the presenters of other segments using a much more conversational tone.
- SonicSoul 11y agomy favorite advice on writing form Scot Adams: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the_day_you_bec.html http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the_...
- OJFord 11y agoI think this is rubbish advice. I'd much rather we all spoke on first attempt like we write after thoughtful review. I'm reminded of the (gradual) removal of all Latin from British legislation with a view to making it more 'accessible', at the obvious expense of the concise preciseness that the language afford: "with having changed the things requiring changing" is rather less economical than "mutatis mutandis". In a slightly facetious sort of way, I also think the "thanks to .. for reading drafts of this" is rather amusing.
- rdancer 11y ago> "thanks to .. for reading drafts of this" What's the Latin for that?
- OJFord 11y agoHa! Mine's not strong enough to say, though I suspect it would only be 3-4 words ('with-thanks-to .. for-the-reading-of' if you see what I mean). I didn't mean that sentence amused me for uneconomical English, but that it was funny to think about a piece titled 'write like you talk' going through multiple draft stages.
- eecks 11y agoWhy is that funny to you when he suggested putting your writing through draft stages to try achieve the "write like you talk" style?
- OJFord 11y agoBecause when you talk you do not (and indeed cannot) do that. (I would argue preparing a speech does not count, since you are then by definition talking like you have written).
- eecks 11y agoThe point is that your written text reads like someone talking. It makes sense to review the text for this aim.
- iphone7166 11y agoHaha...is he suggesting Satya Nadella?
- wyclif 11y ago"To my writing classes I used later to open by saying that anybody who could talk could also write. Having cheered them up with this easy-to-grasp ladder, I then replaced it with a huge and loathsome snake: “How many people in this class, would you say, can talk? I mean really talk?” That had its duly woeful effect. I told them to read every composition aloud, preferably to a trusted friend. The rules are much the same: Avoid stock expressions (like the plague, as William Safire used to say) and repetitions. Don’t say that as a boy your grandmother used to read to you, unless at that stage of her life she really was a boy, in which case you have probably thrown away a better intro. If something is worth hearing or listening to, it’s very probably worth reading. So, this above all: Find your own voice." ~ Christopher Hitchens
- agarden 11y agoThis seems much better advice. I found the opposite of PG. I discovered that when I worked on talking the way I wrote, my speech became much better and more interesting. Now, PG speaks off the cuff pretty well. So I suppose if people find you well spoken, it makes sense to try to write more like you talk. But if you write better than you speak, make your speech more like your writing.
- myth_buster 11y agoAvoid stock expressions (like the plague, as William Safire used to say) This is Hitchens being cheeky as always! :)
- ebt 11y agoThis whole idea and article leave me speechless (sic). Talking and writing are two different mediums. Never heard of Marshall MacLuhan? I curse a lot, at home, where I live alone. As soon as I step out the door I talk differently to my neighbors. I also adopt a different voice when I visit my family in another state. And then another when talking to co-workers. So which of those should I write in? Try putting "fucking" in the HN search bar. The top article I get is "Fucking Sue Me" with 689 points. Great. I can't begin to express how irritating it is to read such articles/blog posts with "fucking" all over the text, even thought at home I probably say that word 10-20 times a day. But I'm not writing that for others to read. And then we have this gem from PG: "Informal language is the athletic clothing of ideas." Really? If I talked like that to my friends or co-workers they'd be laughing at me for days. To "write like I talk" I'd say: "what an arrogant fucking stupid shit statement." Good bye HN.
- visakanv 11y agoBye! All the best.
- vacri 11y agoI think better advice is to know your message, know your audience, and write appropriately. If you're skilled enough to write flowery prose in the first place, then you're skilled enough to detect the appropriate level and write to it. For example, there is a world of difference between troubleshooting a user problem verbally, directly in email, or writing a guide for the problem on a wiki. They all take different conversational styles.
- fisk 11y agoI don't know about "write like you talk", precisely, but I've noticed that some very good writing on technical subjects reads like you could give it as a talk, so there's something there about clarity.
- yomritoyj 11y agoPaul Halmos in How to Write Mathematics says: “A good attitude to the preparation of written mathematical exposition is to pretend that it is spoken. Pretend that you are explaining the subject to a friend on a long walk in the woods, with no paper available; fall back on symbolism only when it is really necessary.”
- thedevil 11y agoThis is a no-brainer. At first, I thought it's not worthy of an essay because it's so obvious. But then I read the comments.
- RankingMember 11y agoAgreed. I feel like I'm tripping over the ego of some writers trying to read their work; I can practically see them with the thesaurus out trying to make things sound grander and more complicated than they are.
- thedevil 11y agoTo clarify: I don't think Paul Graham meant ramble, use "uhs" and "ums" and expletives as some commenters have said. I think the point was to use common and simple wording so that people can understand without doing a lot of work. People have a lot more practice understanding common and simple words. So it's much easier for them to read, no matter how smart they are. Using uncommon or complicated words makes you feel smart, and might make some people think you're smart, but it makes your writing miserable work to read. I think this was pretty clear in PG's essay, but the headline probably threw people off. Maybe he should have said it differently, such as "Make your writing as simple as your speech."
- callmeed 11y agoConsidering how many people now say the work "like" at least twice per sentence (especially young people), I don't think this is good advice without some caveats.
- baddox 11y ago> You don't need complex sentences to express complex ideas. I think that precision and clarity are top concerns, but I don't conflate precision and clarity with simplicity or colloquialism. It's strictly true that you don't need complex sentences to express complex ideas, but I think that complex sentences provide more precision and clarity for complex ideas. As always, know your audience—I don't dispute that there will always be demand for simple digestible explanations of extremely complex ideas (e.g. theoretical physics). > When specialists in some abstruse topic talk to one another about ideas in their field, they don't use sentences any more complex than they do when talking about what to have for lunch. No, but I suspect that when they need the utmost precision and clarity, they write, and I suspect they write rather complex sentences. I saw a recent interview where a U.S Supreme Court justice mentioned that a huge portion of the work that goes on while deliberating a case is written, even though the justices are presumably on speaking terms and are quite capable of getting together and discussing things verbally.
- firebones 11y agoWrite like you think, not like you talk. I do not talk like I think. Something is broken in that pathway. I'm better at writing. I've watched my son, who has trouble writing, express himself for papers via Dragon Dictate. Literally "write like you talk". And it is a mess. Stream of consciousness, betting on the reader picking up social cues, etc. It is rare to find someone who can both write and talk with the same words and phrasing. Although I do agree with the post in the sense of "don't stilt your prose". Don't adopt someone else's written voice, or a perceived style. (If you have the skills to do that, you have the skills to write better...so do that instead.)
- xiaoma 11y agoI'm really torn on this one. In the abstract, I agree with the main argument of this essay. However, it saddens me to see PG planning to write more like he speaks. His writing is so good that it's been life changing for me, but I only find his talks mediocre. It truly would be a pity if he took his own advice to heart and lost some of the essay-writing awesome sauce.
- justsee 11y ago> But just imagine calling Picasso "the mercurial Spaniard" when talking to a friend. Consider the UK talking heads landscape is filled with individuals with a formidable command of the English language and pg's example comes across as very parochial and culturally ignorant. Perhaps the essay should be 'Write like I talk', because I can't imagine how he would deal with an episode of QI with Stephen Fry holding forth.
- rokhayakebe 11y agoWell "if truth was self evidence, eloquence wouldn't be needed." Most of the time, we should write simply, but there are many times when we should be more colorful. Also the fact that we must choose simple writing is a shortcoming and a lack of proper education. If the only word I know to express a romantic feeling is "love," well that is going to seriously limit me.
- baoha 11y agoIt's good that PG didn't follow his own rule, otherwise we would have seen lots of "hmm" in his texts.
- pjscott 11y agoSounds like you've heard him talk, then. Listen to where he says "umm", and the tone, and how the audience reacts: those are punctuation. In writing they become paragraph breaks or dashes or periods or commas or just strongly implied pauses after emphasized words. It's an unusual way of punctuating things, but it seems to work okay.
- crimsonalucard 11y agoIt really depends. Paul illustrates a clear difference between the way people write and the way people talk. I would argue that while this is true, there are cases where people write better than they talk.
- orthoganol 11y agoI agree with pg, but I do think he could be more open minded to critical theory kind of stuff in the humanities. Yeah a lot of it is truly terrible to read, just following some weirdly abstract chain of logic that leads nowhere... but some of it is actually pretty enlightening or at least makes you think about things more critically, in ways that are ultimately useful. For me the good stuff are the thinkers fleshing out the position that Hegel introduced, which arguably is still the shadow that philosophy lives in. I'm CS, not humanities, but even so I see a lot of connections between developing philosophy and improving society, and a lot of these contemporary thinkers blend in philosophy of mind which could be useful for AI.
- zzzbra 11y agoI understand where this is coming from. All the same I find its devaluation of the variation of language one can naturally access when writing both dangerous and simpleminded in its utilitarian assumptions. It's a strawman argument. Writing is a creative act and not simply a matter of communication.
- aaronbrethorst 11y agoLike pg, I'd recommend you read your writing out loud to yourself. Not read it back to yourself, but literally read it out loud. I find this to be, by far, the easiest way to catch awkward turns of phrase and the like. Jargon and highfalutin words should also be avoided whenever possible. For instance, if you have the choice of using either "abstruse" or "obscure," I recommend choosing "obscure" every time. Plain-spoken English ftw. (I also find it wonderfully ironic that pg chose such an obscure synonym for "obscure" to represent the word obscure. bravo.)
- kiyoto 11y agoThis reminded me of an interview of David Foster Wallace "...here’s this fundamental difference that comes up in freshman comp and haunts you all the way through teaching undergrads: there is a fundamental difference between expressive writing and communicative writing. One of the biggest problems in terms of learning to write, or teaching anybody to write, is getting it in your nerve endings that the reader cannot read your mind. That what you say isn’t interesting simply because you, yourself, say it. Whether that translates to a feeling of obligation to the reader I don’t know, but we’ve all probably sat next to people at dinner or on public transport who are producing communication signals but it’s not communicative expression. It’s expressive expression, right? And actually it’s in conversation that you can feel most vividly how alienating and unpleasant it is to feel as if someone is going through all the motions of communicating with you but in actual fact you don’t even need to be there at all." "Conversations with David Foster Wallace" (Literary Conversations Series, page 113 A big thing that pg seems to be unaware is that most of us are expressive, not communicative, when we talk. Stylistically, it's true that plain English is the way to go. However, the deeper problem lies in our (in)ability to communicate our thoughts, in writing or in speech.
- gbog 11y ago"And it's so easy to do: just don't let a sentence through unless it's the way you'd say it to a friend." Well no, it is very hard to write a text in "spoken language". This has been analysed by many writers, and the master of this operation in French language is Céline. He says that a lot of minute tweaking is required in order to produce the effect of spoken language in the reader's mind. And this has not very much to do with removing the "litterature" from one's script, which is obviously much easier.
- joonoro 11y agoI've heard of this advice before [0] and I really think it's very useful advice. The goal isn't to make your writing literally spoken language and add every "um" and "ah" to your text, but to make it sound like someone might actually say that and that it sounds like natural speech. Like pg said, you wouldn't look at your friends weirdly for that. It's too easy to fall into the trap of trying to "decorate" your text with fancy words and language but as the example shows it feels artificial and alienates the reader. "Write like you talk." [0] I think it was The Elements of Style, but you should go read that anyways because it's like K&R for English. There's a lot of examples of how the ear is much better at deciding which kind of language to use than you are.
- incepted 11y ago> Here's a simple trick for getting more people to read what you write: write in spoken language. Speaking of doing what you preach: stop adding manual <br> in your articles, it makes them unreadable on mobile and wide monitors and it basically displays a total ignorance of how the web is supposed to work (let readers control how your articles appear to them).
- charlesism 11y ago"How the web is supposed to work" changes every five seconds. <br> is one of the oldest tags in HTML. Maybe it's wrong this year. I remember the year when Tables were wrong, too.
- incepted 11y agoThe point remains that you should let the browser reflow the text based on the width of the browser. <br> makes this impossible.
- itsybitsycoder 11y agoHe's only using <br> for paragraph breaks. The thing that makes the article look strange on mobile/wide monitors is probably the part where it's inside a fixed-width table cell.
- incepted 11y agoMore useful would be "talk like you write". The best speakers are the ones who are best at that because of the mental discipline it imposes: no uh, er, ah or pauses, just grammatically correct sentences, all the time.
- visakanv 11y agoThe best part of PG's advice is actually this: > "After writing the first draft, try explaining to a friend what you just wrote. Then replace the draft with what you said to your friend." This is the single best thing you can do to improve your communication skills, whether it be in writing or speaking. You're forced, out of courtesy and respect for your friend, to find the heart of the matter and you make it accessible. (I'm currently in the middle of a 1,000,000 words stream-of-consciousness writing project, where I write exactly whatever's coming to my mind with as little editing as possible. I'm approaching 500,000 words now. It's pretty enlightening.)
- ckaygusu 11y agoGeneralizing: "Representation of ideas done in any form should be done in a way that impairs as little cognitive load as possible on the reader". This principle goes in programming, as well as in writing. But not all writing is done to transmit ideas, there is also aesthetic side of it.
- adambard 11y agoI think that, like, um, when you... when you write things like, uh, you know, fantasy novels or, uhhh.. things that are literature, that you should probably ignore this advice. On the other hand, if you're writing nonfiction, with the goal of conveying information effectively, then this is probably good advice.
- tempodox 11y ago“Write like I talk” would be the most surefire social-media-suicide method I could think of.
- orionlogic 11y agoI would say this is true, because whenever i read a PG essay, i think of his voice, thinking his talks. His uniqe voice, tonality and speed of spoken language into his writings, which in turn helps me to better understand what he syas. I always wanted to hear PG essays from his voice. Like an Audible for PG essays.
- 0898 11y agoI'm surprised nobody's mentioned Warren Buffett – he's a great 'write like you talk' role model. He explains complex ideas in a folksy, down to earth way. I studied 50 years of his annual letters, and there's probably 13 or 14 techniques he uses to make people read what he writes. (If you're interested, my short book Write Like Warren is free on Leanpub: https://leanpub.com/writelikewarren https://leanpub.com/writelikewarren) Edit: Dropbox link – https://www.dropbox.com/sh/um4djdcdb5isw6y/AAAzF6Xm-PGrkJT3ZuJw6LQca?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/sh/um4djdcdb5isw6y/AAAzF6Xm-PGrkJT3Z...
- DigitalSea 11y agoUnless you are naturally a great speaker, writing like you talk is bad advice in my opinion. I, for example would sound erratic and incoherent if I wrote how I talked. I sometimes say things without thinking quite a lot. At least when I write, I can think about things more clearly, research what I am saying and get my facts straight. I usually agree with most of what you say PG, but in this instance I think you're wrong. Still, it was an interesting read nonetheless.
- rplnt 11y agoAt first I thought of a talk as in presentation. That would be funny advice considering how terrible speaker he is (which is a shame because it's just the form that's bad, not the content). But going off from that, I think people tend to talk like that in general conversations and it only stands out in presentations.. or on a paper. So not the best advice in my opinion. What I would take from it is to just not overdo it when you are writing.
- mattlutze 11y ago> Before I publish a new essay, I read it out loud and fix everything that doesn't sound like conversation. I even fix bits that are phonetically awkward; I don't know if that's necessary, but it doesn't cost much. This is the key bit. It's not so much "write like you talk" and more "write like you could present it." So much writing isn't accessible because the author misses this cardinal rule. Even the most dense, formal scientific writing can be made clearer if the author or editor reads it aloud and fixes the awkward parts. I helped content editing for an academic journal back in the day. A big part of our jobs was helping the authors bring their voice out into the papers. A lot of writers, novice and expert alike, have an idea of what an "expert" in their field should sound like. The result is stiff and manufactured prose that too often ends up being inaccessible for anyone else. But, as soon as you clue an author in on how their personal voice can come through an article, you see a shift in the quality and clarity of the work. The articles, text books and other writing I learn the best from, and come back to, ultimately sound in my head as if the author and I are speaking aloud. It's the real differentiator in sounding like an amateur or an expert.
- eecks 11y agoSound advice.
- bikeshack 11y agoSo I should talk in Legal English all day? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_English which is the reverse of writing as one talks, because the Rule of Law surrounds us always, except for the criminals who flout it repeatedly throughout their day. When I write, I self censor all the time, and it is no different when I talk. We forgive and forget. We silo only certain words to certain areas of the world. "What happens in Vegas" etc. Language only becomes a problem when it is committed permanently to the footnotes of the web. You can't overlook the law aspect. You also can't so easily withdraw a statement said online.
- helgeman 11y agoI think it always depends on what your intention of communication is. Like it is said in the article. Most of the time you want to communicate to others what you are thinking. The simpler the better. I guess there is a similarity to writing code. Your machine can only handle exact commands for communication. But in human-to-human interaction there is more. Sometimes you want others to start thinking about something. Put an image in their head. Draw a comparison to let them think of the bigger picture.I dont think for that purpose spoken language is always the best way.
- kitd 11y agoThe funny thing is that Neil Oliver really does talk like that.
- mch82 11y agoI often keep revising until a text-to-speech program is able to read my writing in a way that sounds natural. Following that approach led to great results in university writing courses and, recently, got me through the process of writing and officiating a wedding. I share this because many of the comments respond to the "write like you speak" advice with statements similar to "I don't speak well, so 'write like you talk' won't work for me". We spend every day of our lives consuming spoken language and reading written language to ourselves and, as a result, we are able to recognize speech that sounds clear and well spoken. Even if you struggle to speak improvisationally, listening to what you've written can help to evaluate the understandability and flow of your writing.
- stullig 11y agotl;dr
- SarahofGaia 11y agoIf anything, I need to talk like how I write. I'm a writer, not a talker: I'm verbose in speech, but concise in text.
- bikeshack 11y agoJust ran Paul's article through Anonymouth https://github.com/psal/anonymouth https://github.com/psal/anonymouth Considerably changed and mangled beyond all recognition. It even sounds less persuasive in tone.
- sarreph 11y agoPerhaps a reason why this works so well is due to most people's way of subvocalizing[1] material that they read. If you're saying an article out loud in your head as you read it, then it sure does make sense for it to sound like an actual voice is saying it! [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization
- bambax 11y agoWriting and talking are two very different things; it's bad advice to tell people to write as they talk. What makes talking and writing so very different are, at least, that: 1) Writing is a monologue; talking is a conversation. It's extremely rare one would talk in the form of monologue, except when giving a speech (and even in that case, the audience can usually ask questions). 2) When talking with someone, you have an immense array of non-verbal communication tools at your disposal (body language, eye contact, hands movements, speed of talking, pauses, etc. etc. etc.); in writing you have none of those, so everything you want to say, you have to write down. Of course one should use simple, usual words, and (maybe) short sentences. But that has to be the oldest "tip" there is, in any language; there's even a .gov website dedicated to it: http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/guidelines/FederalPLGuidelines/writeShort.cfm http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/guidelines/FederalPLGuide...
- pg_is_a_butt 11y agopg writes like a butt because he talks like a butt.
- brudgers 11y agoWrite Writing for the audience is secondary to writing[1]. Graham's good at it after 25 years developing his writing and cultivating an audiance. Everything else is secondary to this when it comes to getting people to read what I've written. The first writing I did that I thought was any good was on Critique of Pure Reason and I wrote that paper in the style of translated Kant, which is to say that there were a lot of "which is to say that" which is to say that "which is to say that" is not something I normally say in everyday conversation, but that I find very helpful when I'm trying to explain something complicated (and generalizes to a useful strategy at the end of meetings to help insure that everybody talked about some of the same things and hopefully it was the same things that were important). And reading Kant shows that sometimes reading is hard work and that some people enjoy it, and bringing pleasure into the world by writing is possible. These days I sort of look to do that since why else would I write? Besides as a way of thinking, of course. I guess that means that perhaps Matz is on to something, write what makes you happy. It sort of goes without saying that being nice is part of that and I've come to realize that the part of being an internet asshole that was pleasurable was the writing part and the part of that that was at the core of being happy was writing effectively. Now for some kinds of writing, being effective means using short blunt sentences in the Hemmingway style. But fuck the man shot himself in the head, and Shakespeare and Faulkner didn't. Not that it's statistical proof that writing that way made him unhappy, but it obviously didn't make him happy enough if it even made him happy at all. Of course, I'm not PG, so people don't expect the sage advice about startups; a good thing since his advice is really good. I'm just not sure his advice to beginning authors is particularly sage since the works from his early career as an author have the same "clam ice cream with reluctance" cleverness for the sake of being clever that impedes simplicity but gives authors the joy of playing with words that keeps them going forward like the nine iron over the tree from the deep rough that sticks close to the hole brings bad duffers back for more misery. In other words, there's something to be said for stream of consciousness writing and against being self conscious. Writing is a soliloquy, it's a speech not a conversation: a sermon for the choir with only the hope that people won't walk out as the level of attention that should be paid to the non-audience. For what it's worth, I had fun writing this, typos and all. I hope someone had fun reading it. I also enjoy Graham's essays and books. I'd just simplify this one. [1]: http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm
- munificent 11y agoUgh, I agree with the sentiment, but the proposed solution is almost as awkward as the prose he descries. I agree with Paul that "fancy", "formal" prose like this is (randomly chosen example) does no one any favors: > This work aims to address the disconnect between object-oriented design > and implementation by rethinking the way object-oriented languages are > structured. We have developed a set of requirements with which to identify > good relationship models, and used these requirements to develop a > new model for the object-oriented paradigm which focuses on relationships > rather than objects. We will test the effectiveness of the model by designing > a language which uses it, along with a formal specification and a > practical implementation for the language. We will measure the effectiveness > of our model by conducting case studies comparing development in > existing languages with development in our relationship-based language. But saying that the only solution is to write how you speak informally to friends also eliminates prose like: > The tide climbs. The moon hangs small and yellow and gibbous. On the rooftops > of beachfront hotels to the east, and in the gardens behind them, a half-dozen > American artillery units drop incendiary rounds into the mouths of mortars. I don't think Anthony Doerr uses phrases like "mouths of mortars" when having beer with his friends, but his prose is an absolute work of art. Every single word and dollop of punctuation there is perfect. The key part is not to write like you are speaking to your friends. It's to write like you are speaking to a specific audience. Have a picture in your mind of yourself speaking in a venue to one or more people. The image you have will dramatically affect the way you right. Picture yourself giving a hollering a rousing speech to a platoon of soldiers about to enter into battle and your reader will hear the Battle Hymn of the Republic by the time they reach the end of your paragraph. Whisper your words into the ear of a lover and your reader will get the shivers. For most of the writing we on HN do, sure, "explaining something cool to your friends over lunch" is exactly the right image to get your style in line. But it's a massive over-simplification to say all prose should be written with tat venue in mind. Personally, I think "mercurial Spaniard" is a great description of Picasso.
- ivan_ah 11y agoSomething that helps a lot with achieving a conversational tone is to actually record "spoken drafts" of what you want to write about, then transcribe the audio. For optimal results, have a point-form plan of what you want to discuss so you will stay on topic and avoid rambling.
- xacaxulu 11y agoConsidering that communication can be just as much about what you say as how you say it, I'd say that I appreciate artistic liberties like 'mercurial Spaniard'. Writing can be a form of direct communication as well as a refined art form. I enjoy the departure from the usual lexicon.
- rquantz 11y agoTo all the valid criticisms of the actual advice in the article, I'd like to add that pg's gratuitous poke at gender studies, of all things, was unnecessary. He could have made his same (wrong) point about academia without including that term. His inclusion of "gender" as a marker for "bogus" humanities shows more about his privileged, white cisgender male perspective than about his subject. This guy is a "thought leader" for the startup community. Congratulations.
- vinayak147 11y agoWriting something (that is worth reading) in simple words is very hard. I believe that clear thinking plays a bigger role than semantics. When I am confused about a topic, I tend to write about it using complex arguments with long sentences and long words. PG speaks and writes about startups with more clarity than most people. It is because his thinking on startups has greater clarity/conviction than most people. From my perspective, there seems to be no shortcut or semantic trick to clear writing.
- Jemmeh 11y agoI think a lot of people are missing the point. The point isn't to be redundant and write in verbatim transcriptions. The point is to speak simply, as most people would out loud. Communication is about getting your point across. A lot of people will write in a very formal "I am fluffing up my school essay" style which distances the reader, makes the topic more boring, and in my opinion actually makes the writing harder for most people to comprehend. You have to pause and think as opposed to just naturally getting through what you're being told.
- Terr_ 11y ago"Write how you WISHED you talked."
- artur_makly 11y agoi would love to! once technology actually allows me to do it. Dragon dictate hasn't delivered yet. So who will?
- bradezone 11y agoI couldn't disagree with this more.
- SZJX 11y agoHe talks as if fiction and all kinds of literature don't exist, as if writing is only useful for conveying advice and commentary. This particular kind of writing might suit him well but this is not how it works in general. His idea that only "poetry" and some "bogus end of humanities" need complex prose is narrow. Also formal reports are more formal than usual for a reason.