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First sentence of the post: Fresh from being chastised for expressing my personal opinion, on my personal blog and other strictly personal venues, about matter
by tjic 17y ago
First sentence of the post:
Fresh from being chastised for expressing my personal opinion, on my personal blog and other strictly personal venues, about matters that may, or may not, ever intersect the realm of the impersonal a.k.a. corporate, I take a detour into the strictly, perhaps overly, personal, viz. how to talk to my own children about the dangers of drugs that I myself have taken — both medicinally and recreationally — and the many others that I have not, only to receive emails and IMs via impersonal a.k.a. corporate media from strangers-but-strictly-speaking-coworkers asking if everything is OK over there in personal-land.
"impersonal a.k.a. corporate" ??
"strictly, perhaps overly, personal, viz...." ??
"impersonal a.k.a. corporate" - a SECOND time ??
"strangers-but-strictly-speaking-coworkers" ??
This tone of speech encapsulates everything that I hate about self-important psuedo-intellectuals discussing literary "theory" in the English departments of universities.
It's verbose, long-winded, and intentionally difficult to read - all in an attempt to sound intelligent and deep, while actually covering up a paucity of any original thought.
After that one "sentence", I stopped reading.
Clear writing is relatively easy, and expresses a respect for one's audience.
Long winded bull shit (like the above) expresses contempt for one's audience.
- TomasSedovic 17y agoIt probably depends on the audience. I love his writing. Reminds me of Neil Gaiman a bit (whom I like as well). And part of what I like is exactly what you complain against here. To each his own, I guess.
- elblanco 17y agoI found the style of writing rather manic and humorous myself.
- mcantor 17y agoIt's just a run-on sentence, dude.
- lincolnq 17y agoNot actually a run-on, which refers to an ungrammatical sentence. The quoted sentence appears to be grammatically correct.
- mcantor 17y agoHuh, you're right. It is definitely grammatically correct, now that I look at it. It's unquestionably rambling, though, and (I should hope) an example of bad style.
- tome 17y agoIt doesn't express contempt for one's audience, it expresses contempt for the aforementioned "strangers-but-strictly-speaking-coworkers", and it does it very well in my opinion. It's a literary device; it's not an entry in a technical manual.
- gwern 17y ago> Long winded bull shit (like the above) expresses contempt for one's audience. You'd better never read David Foster Wallace, then, who basically invented Mark's style there.
- tjic 17y ago> You'd better never read David Foster Wallace, then Sure I have. I don't think much of his writing either.