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Smooth Talk
- microcolonel 9y ago> While writing is supposed to intimately represent who we are, this software highlights the perpetual inadequacy of translation, intervening with standardization as optimization I think Alex needs more than writing aid software. This sentence is overloaded with million dollar phrasing. So many sentences in this article are nearly meaningless, and impossible to parse. The reason is that the author and his postmodernist/posthumanist idols reject meaning itself, so when they attempt to produce advice on conveying meaning, they instead produce nonsense. Don't listen to Alex. "Late capitalism" and "patriarchy" are not to blame for the advice Grammarly and Hemingway give. The drive to be understood is what motivates tools like this. I have used the rules that Hemingway (the application) enforces to improve my business communications, and they have measurably reduced the need for retransmission or damage control related to misunderstanding.
- coldtea 9y ago>So many sentences in this article are nearly meaningless, and impossible to parse. The reason is that the author and his idols reject meaning itself, so when they attempt to produce advice on conveying meaning, they instead produce nonsense. The sentence you quote is, at worst, clumsy. There are few, or no, signs in the post itself that the author rejects meaning or anything or the sort. He might be a hardcore Derrida scholar for all I know (-- but that's hardly apparent in the post and the point he tries to make are quite clear. Here's a "translation": "While writing is supposed to intimately represent who we are" This needs to translation. "this software highlights the perpetual inadequacy of translation" ...this software is an example of how when we translate something, we lose some part of the meaning of the original. "intervening with standardization as optimization" ...the software meddles with our writing process, presenting us with the most standardized options (regarding word choice, standard rules for "better writing" etc) as if they represent the optimal way to write something.
- microcolonel 9y ago> There are few, or no, signs in the post itself that the author rejects meaning or anything or the sort. You're correct that the article itself doesn't spell it out clearly. My spidey senses just started tingling when I was uncertain I had understood the singular intended meaning of the sentences. I checked out the author bio and it confirmed my inkling: that postmodernism and/or posthumanism has something to do with why this article is such a pain to read. I am a human, and all of the beings which read and understand English, as intended, are humans. Posthumanism is an affront to the conveyance of meaning, no matter how drab or lame you think your essay is after you run it through Grammarly. It is true that, given only the rules and conventions of a language, no singular meaning can be read from an utterance. It is, thus, tempting to say that no utterance has any singular meaning. I contend that the human condition lends sufficient context to read a singular (or close enough) meaning from a well-formed utterance.
- coldtea 9y ago>It is true that, given only the rules and conventions of a language, no singular meaning can be read from an utterance. It is, thus, tempting to say that no utterance has any singular meaning. I contend that the human condition lends sufficient context to read a singular (or close enough) meaning from a well-formed utterance. That though is not all that post-modernism says, but rather a a reduced straw-man version. Even if they alluded (or openly) stated that, they did it for particular, quite rational, reasons, with they explained with much more nuance and drew rather rich conclusions from. In the end, like with the dadaists/surrealists, people might have laughed at them, but half of what we consume culturally today, from ads and graphic design to mainstream tv and comics, owes them huge debts. Speaking of the original post-modernists of course. Not that the American academics that followed french post-modernism much understood this nuance.
- qznc 9y ago> If language is figured as the original prosthesis inaugurating humanity, proofreading technologies become disciplinary apparatuses modulating neoliberalism’s posthuman subject. My try to parse it: If language made us human, proofreading tech makes us post-human.
- microcolonel 9y agoThe disconnect here, which explains the style of the article and the nature of the advice, is the assumption that human technology could lend a post-human quality. I'd say that the human technology is more human than any individual human, because it is closer to the humanist ideal than to any individual.
- munificent 9y agoI don't particularly like the author's style, but I like that he has a style, which I think in some ways reflects the point of the essay. Software that "helps" you with your grammar does so by eliminating much of the style that is unique to you. This touches on, I think, a pretty deep question. To what degree are our mistakes and imperfections "us" and how much should we seek to eliminate them? Where is the line between simply choosing how we present ourselves versus presenting ourselves inauthentically? A completely untouched photo is obviously "me". A picture of a some other model is clearly not. But between those two points there is an increasingly smooth continuum that people are getting to choose from. When software using machine learning trained on datasets of photos of models subtly corrects my skin and facial structure, is it still an honest photo of me? Is the choice to use that software itself an honest expression of who I am?
- microcolonel 9y agoI think that the alternative to excessive proofreading is not an altogether rejection of standards, but a willingness to break free of them when you feel it lends a desired quality. Grammarly and Hemingway are not really intended for artistic writing. The best they can offer to the artist is some perspective on why the readers may not see what he's getting at.
- gowld 9y agoHemingway is poorly chosen name, if it's not intended for artistic writing.
- microcolonel 9y ago> Hemingway is poorly chosen name, if it's not intended for artistic writing. I agree entirely with that, and it doesn't even really match Hemingway's style.
- maldusiecle 9y agoSeems pretty easy to argue that capitalism is to blame for the attitude you seem to take reflexively: that writing is meant for "business communications" first and foremost. I can't blame anyone for preferring irrationalism over such a blinkered worldview.
- microcolonel 9y agoI did not say that the purpose of writing is "business communications first and foremost". Business communications are a good way to measure whether or not you're being understood, because people's actions are affected by what they think you mean. I would hold any day that the purpose of writing is to have something understood. P.S. "late capitalism" is not "capitalism", it's a phrasing meant to normalize the implication that capitalism is expiring and/or coming to an end. This implication has been popular with socialists for well over a century, so apparently it's never been too late for capitalism. ;- )
- maldusiecle 9y ago> I would hold any day that the purpose of writing is to have something understood. See, that's exactly the issue. Shakespeare didn't write his sonnets simply to be "understood," he adopted a more difficult language for the sake of expressivity and aesthetic pleasure. Direct transmission of the author's intent is only one of writing's purposes. To treat it as the only one is to obliterate entire realms of human experience. This is pretty clearly the author's point, anyway.
- draw_down 9y agoThe obsession with eliminating passive voice drives me nuts. It is absolutely okay to use passive voice. Or maybe it would be better to say it should be okay to use passive voice.
- microcolonel 9y agoAttribution is important to descriptions of reality. Passive voice obscures attribution, giving a distorted or incomplete impression of reality. There are cases where passive voice does not harm attribution, or where lack of attribution serves a purpose, but as a general rule it's worth avoiding.
- luckydata 9y agoin software specifications and jounralism fine. In prose it's lunacy and shit advice. That's the problem of the one trick pony education style we happen to have in the US. Lack of nuance from teachers is appalling. Growing up in Europe I got a much wider exposure to history, philosophy and other humanistic subjects than my american wife ever had (and ironically she's the art history major...).
- jcelerier 9y ago> The obsession with eliminating passive voice drives me nuts. ... people are trying to do this ? Passive voice is the only way to have a meaningful conversation.
- mrob 9y agoFor example, consider the famous opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." The joke only works in passive voice. If you attribute it to a specific person or group then it's no longer comical wishful thinking, it's just plain wrong. Sometimes vagueness is beneficial.
- draw_down 9y agoPride and Prejudice, you say? Must have been written by some rube.
- metanoetic 9y agoThe comments here prove, at least, that not everyone is cut out for dense or complex reading ;)
- unixhero 9y agoI totally enjoyed this article.