5 ms·
In my opinion, I think you're wrong. In some cases (like mine above) it is unnecessary to specify that it's your opinion, because it's truly and obviously an o
by ryanwaggoner 16y ago
In my opinion, I think you're wrong.
In some cases (like mine above) it is unnecessary to specify that it's your opinion, because it's truly and obviously an opinion. But not every statement made is someone's opinion [1]. For example:
"In my opinion, the earth revolves around the Sun."
"In my opinion, Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States."
etc.
Because some statements are clear and simple facts, it can sometimes be useful to delineate opinion from fact, especially in cases where it's not explicitly clear which type of statement is being made. In most cases, I think that it's pretty clear from the context that 37signals' is writing from their own experience and sharing their opinions, and thus littering their writing with "weasel words" would diminish the quality of the writing.
However, in many cases (including some by 37signals), writers intentionally leave out the "weasel words" not because their statements are obviously opinion, but because they know it will get people riled up and serve as good linkbait. Ironically, they often fall back to this whole idea of "of course it's only my opinion, weasel words are bad writing, etc", which strikes me as kind of a reverse-weasel. Write as if you're stating absolute truth (in order to get links), even when you aren't, and then hide behind "good writing" when people complain.
[1] I'm really not interested in the greater philosophical questions of whether it's opinion that the earth revolves around the sun. If you are, be my guest, but I'm fully prepared to just accept some things as fact. The earth revolving around the sun is one of them :)
EDIT: I might have been using "heliocentricism" wrong, so I removed it to prevent ambiguity.
- nudge 16y agoReverse-weasel is my new favourite concept.
- cabacon 16y agoQuite related, I think, is preterition: the act of mentioning something by saying you won't mention it. I seem to encounter it from computer/math people a lot, it's nice to have a name for the action.
- mkramlich 16y agoAnd within 24 hours somebody, somewhere on the Internet will upload some sort of porn based on it, of course, and it will be to 4chan.
- chc 16y agoI think people read in the "linkbait" reasoning much more often. The simple truth is that even when there's some slight ambiguity, constantly printing disclaimers about how this is your opinion, other people think differently, you don't have to believe what I'm saying, etc. — it's annoying and detracts from the actual flow of information, and the benefit is questionable at best in many cases. (Even the people who complain about the "confusing" absolutism seem to understand what Fried actually means, and I suspect most other people understand it correctly as well.) I haven't read Rework, but in "Getting Real," they had two paragraphs on one page explaining all of the above: "Yes, this is purely based on our experience. Some people do it differently and it works. We're just telling you about our way of doing things." And then the rest of the book was written simply, without cushioning. I think that's a fine compromise.
- allend 16y agoIn my opinion, it is kinda like how you just know 37signals sometimes leaves out weasel words to get people riled up and serve as good linkbait. Wait, did I need the 'in my opinion' or not? I am confused now.
- nerfhammer 16y agoinsightful comment of the day
- humblepatience 16y agoExcept, 37signals articles are clearly not statements of facts. If they were, your point would be awesome. But they are clearly opinion. "Resumes are dumb" != "The earth revolves around the sun"
- sqrt17 16y agoThe idea is that, if you think the reader will just accept something as a fact, you don't need to hedge it. If your reader will see it as an arguable point (instead of an uncontroversial fact), then you should make (or at least sketch) the argument, because you're not a sect leader or anyone else who can spoon-feed "truth" to his minion. You should make the argument because you want the reader to be able to disagree with you and see where he/she still follows you. And if it's not worth making an argument, there's an opportunity to make the text shorter and more concise by exactly that sentence.