8 ms·
On Making Oneself Less Unreadable
- baxtr 9y agoIt is wrong to start a sentence with “but”! It is wrong to start a sentence with “and”! It is wrong to end a sentence with a preposition! It is wrong to split an infinitive! Love it!
- cdancette 9y agoYou should not quote like this, use > rather. It is unreadable on mobile, we don't want that, do we?
- germinalphrase 9y agoThis complaint seems to appear on a regular basis (because it's accurate). Can't we just fix that issue rather than attempting to reinforce some community norm about quote formatting?
- IncRnd 9y ago> This complaint seems to appear on a regular basis (because it's accurate). Can't we just fix that issue rather than attempting to reinforce some community norm about quote formatting? As you indicate, there is nothing to fix when the complaint of incorrect usage is accurate. The markup quotes _verbatim_. Therefore quoting long lines will scroll on smaller screens. https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc * Blank lines separate paragraphs. * Text after a blank line that is indented by two or more spaces is reproduced verbatim. (This is intended for code.) * Text surrounded by asterisks is italicized, if the character after the first asterisk isn't whitespace. * Urls become links, except in the text field of a submission
- colanderman 9y agoI think the "fix" GP is suggesting is for HN to add a "blockquote" syntax. i.e., make text like this: > something quoted which is very long and let's pretend it wraps lines look something like this (sans horizontal scrolling): | something quoted which is very long and | let's pretend it wraps lines I get that HN doesn't want to be markup-heavy (a sentiment with which I agree), but posters quote things all the time and it's always ugly if line wraps are involved.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- krapp 9y agoImageboards use that syntax for quotes as well, italicizing and changing the text color, highlighting the quoted text without the scrolling issues of a blockquote. I had a userscript doing that on HN for a while along with as other text fixes, and the result seemed quite readable.
- IncRnd 9y agoThat's a good idea.
- musage 9y agoAnd then you still can't quote a poem without double line spacing, because blank lines are paragraphs, and line breaks are ignored. The HN markup is really lacking.
- IncRnd 9y agoAnd then you still can't quote a poem without double linespacing, because blank lines are paragraphs, and line breaks are ignored. The HN markup is really lacking. Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.
- dredmorbius 9y agoI'd like to see HN get full Markdown support. I've just added the following rule to my local HN CSS stylesheet (using the Stylus CSS manager): pre { white-space: pre-wrap; } This solves the problem ... on my desktop, on a per-browser basis. I still get fuxnored viewing via mobile. My full set of mods: https://pastebin.com/jWFqQSj9 https://pastebin.com/jWFqQSj9
- EvilTerran 9y agoIf you're in a position to use uBlock Origin on mobile (eg, I'm using Firefox for Android), you can use its custom filters to inject arbitrary CSS. Looks like this (from my own filters): news.ycombinator.com##.comment pre:style(max-width:none!important) news.ycombinator.com##.comment code:style(white-space:pre-wrap)
- sincerely 9y agoIt's unreadable on desktop too, isn't it? it looks like it cuts off early
- brudgers 9y agoYou should not quote like this, use > rather. It is unreadable on mobile, we don't want that, do we? Is my preferred method of quoting on Hacker News.
- musage 9y agoAnyone remember Opera, and the magic it could do to fit just about anything into the tiniest viewports? If a mobile browser can't handle nowrap text, demand the browser to be fixed, instead of playing whack-a-mole on every single comment. And give HN proper blockquote and inline quote styles and corresponding markup while you're at it; then non-proportional text can be used for cases where it makes sense, quotes are quotes (and can have super fancy things like italic or non-proportional text within them), and even when people use things "wrong" it's no biggie because your browser is getting the basics right.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- colanderman 9y agoTo clarify, this is an example of something that Fowler disagrees with. "See the article fetishes for these and other such rules of thumb and for references to articles in which it is shown how misleading their sweet simplicity is." Modern linguists generally agree that it's not wrong to split an infinitive [1], and it's not wrong to end a sentence with a preposition which is part of a phrasal verb [2], or even in general [3]. Claiming otherwise is just pseudo-Latin prescriptivism. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive#Current_views https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive#Current_views [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrasal_verb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrasal_verb [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition_stranding#Opinions_for_and_against https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition_stranding#Opinions...
- dredmorbius 9y agoIt is wrong to format an HN textual quote as a code block ;-)
- m52go 9y agoI haven't read Fowler's original work, but I found the samples in this article to be hard to understand (i.e., a tad bit unreadable). Still, as someone who runs a couple of services to help people write more concisely, I agree with most of his advice. And although it has nothing to do with Fowler, the title of the article itself was confusing. I almost didn't click on it because I thought it was talking about personality, not writing (since it mentions "oneself," not one's writing). Then the double-negative. A better title would be something like "On Making Your Writing More Readable." But then it wouldn't be accepted for publication in The Paris Review, would it..."literary critics’ words" (!).
- yesenadam 9y agoShouldn't that be "a tad unreadable"?
- tome 9y ago> the title of the article itself was confusing Isn't it a joke?
- m52go 9y agoAh, maybe. But I think a title is a risky thing to make into a joke, especially in this day and age (clicks), if it obfuscates its own meaning.
- Bobbleoxs 9y agoThink that's deliberate. PS; you need to consider the context, the author is an heir to Samuel Johnson and was active in late 1800 to 1930s. For that period, I think his entries were probably considered 'plain' English.
- emacsgifs 9y agoI wonder if that title was chosen ironically, or if the author simply has no clue? Put another way, what's up with that title?!
- papa-whisky 9y agoThe title refers to one of Fowler's quotes in the article: >Turgid flabby English is full of abstract nouns; the commonest ending of abstract nouns is –tion, and to count the –ion words in what one has written, or, better, to cultivate an ear that without special orders challenges them as they come, is one of the simplest and most effective means of making oneself less unreadable.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoMany of the quotes in the article are doing exactly what they're giving advice about not doing, so that in reading it, you can see exactly what happens if you ignore the advice. The title is doing the same.
- quickthrower2 9y agoAh that's why reading the advice felt like walking through sludge.
- emacsgifs 9y agoAbsolutely, I wasn't sure if the entire article was intended as a complicated joke / cautionary example. An interesting way to communicate the message, but I'm sure it was largely unintentional.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- yesenadam 9y agoI didn't find the title at all confusing. I found the Fowler excerpts wonderful, I've downloaded it to read already. Thanks! But :-) I didn't understand how on earth he could say "Johnson himself was the first to prove that there was little in the way of drudgery in the task of the lexicographer". Does he know how many years of toil it took him? Maybe he just means "It's not a dull book to read", I can't imagine what else.
- telesilla 9y agoI read that as saying, Johnson enjoyed every moment of his work. Quite a feat, what both of them achieved.
- Ice_cream_suit 9y agoIt is a shame that entire article is the antithesis of clarity.
- Avshalom 9y agoThere was a post once on memepool: >> Now there is something to be said for the change, or the two changes: the old-fashioned period, or long complex sentence, carefully worked out with a view to symmetry, balance, and degrees of subordination, though it has a dignity of its own, is formal, stiff, and sometimes frigid; the modern newspaper vice of long sentences either rambling or involved (far commoner in newspapers than the spot-plague) is inexpressibly wearisome and exasperating. -h.w. fowler Vigorous writing is concise -strunk and white. That's when I when I fell in love with Fowler.
- happy-go-lucky 9y agoI think if and when is redundant because it is just equivalent to if. Based on context, either if or when is more appropriate than both of them.
- rahimnathwani 9y ago'I think' is redundant because language is a mechanism for you to express what you think. 'If and when' is not always redundant: 1) I will make your favourite breakfast if you finish your homework 2) I will make your favourite breakfast when you finish your homework 3) I will make your favourite breakfast if and when you finish your homework (2) and (3) specify that the breakfast will be made immediately, or soon after, the homework is completed, whereas (1) doesn't indicate a time, suggesting it will be at the next opportunity (e.g. tomorrow morning). (1) and (3) include some doubt as to whether the homework will be completed, whereas (2) assumes that it will be completed, and only the time is unknown.
- Jtsummers 9y ago“I think” marks what follows as interpretation or opinion, so it’s not redundant. Removing it would change the statement to one of fact or make it prescriptive when it may be better taken as descriptive or a possibility among many.
- Retra 9y ago"I think" also marks a reflection on the state of mind without any implied uncertainty. That is, it implies that the thought originates from your own mind, rather than from some deferred authority. As in "I think we should do X" in opposition to "we should do X" where I've just walked into a meeting after getting off the phone with my boss. I don't want anyone to get the impression that I'm merely relaying orders. >Removing it would change the statement to one of fact or make it prescriptive when it may be better taken as descriptive or a possibility among many. There are better ways to make these distinctions, and in most contexts, you don't need to differentiate between facts and opinions on account of the difference being obvious. And where it isn't obvious, it's obviously debatable, and people will do that regardless of whether you make such a qualification.
- IncRnd 9y ago> On Making Oneself Less Unreadable Don't use a double-negative, and use the correct noun. For example, On Making the Written Word Readable
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- chris_wot 9y agoHow to write more readable prose.
- Retra 9y ago>vogue words. Ha. Best example of this I can recall: 'said' meaning 'aforementioned'. "I ate said taco." Never heard it before. Then suddenly... everyone seemed to be using it.
- posterboy 9y agoI noticed a few mondegreens (misheared words) from foreign languages used here, like per say instead of French/Latin per-se, which is by itself, in case you wonder. I suspect the bigger half [sic!] of all language originated like that.
- haZard_OS 9y agoFor those who prefer a more direct (although less poetic) version of Fowler's work, I refer you to "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker.
- falsedan 9y agoOn the topic of clear writing, a longer work to follow on from this article is The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers. I heartily recommend it, and find its recommendations on reducing officialese quite useful for increasing clarity in technical documentation.