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Why not just "Solomon, writing under the pen name 'Ecclesiastes', said..."? Saying "the man" and then following up with "the fellow with the name" emphasies th

Why not just "Solomon, writing under the pen name 'Ecclesiastes', said..."? Saying "the man" and then following up with "the fellow with the name" emphasies that who he was is less important than what he said; the fact that it's Solomon, writing Ecclesiastes (two names widely recognised in the Western canon) serve to emphasise this. EVEN THOUGH it's written by someone famous in a famous book, what he wrote is STILL more important than who he was. That is part of the meaning here. There's another level to it, as well; the author is well aware that he's out on a limb here and his jovial tone makes it clear that he's not taking himself too seriously. Stripping it down to just "Solomon, writing under the pen name 'Ecclesiastes', said..." changes the meaning. I suppose he could have explicitly said "Here are some words written by the famous person Solomon in the famous book Ecclesiastes, but the words are more important than who he was and the book he wrote, and I'm telling you this because it makes it clear how much more important the words are than the origin of them, but don't take me too seriously on this folks!" but that seems clunky.

PaulOlteanu 8y ago
If the goal was to make the fact that the man who said those words is not important while the words are, why not just not mention Solomon or Ecclesiastes in the first place.
- EliRivers 8y ago
  Stating that the person who said it is Solomon, and then making it clear that the speaker is less important that the words, serves to emphasise what is important. The man who wrote it DOES matter, it DOES alter the effect. Solomon wrote it, in the book Ecclesiastes! Of course that makes a difference, and the writer here deliberately drew our attention to that. Dismissing a famous writer as unimportant carries more weigh than dismissing a complete unknown as unimportant. This isn't some kind of simple logical operator statement that one can apply Boolean algebra to and simplify. This is already massively simplified; the writer expressed a lot of meaning in very few words. So much meaning, so compressed, that many readers think it's just the opposite - little information in too many words! People asking why this wasn't short are missing the fact that this IS the short version!

PaulOlteanu 8y ago

If the goal was to make the fact that the man who said those words is not important while the words are, why not just not mention Solomon or Ecclesiastes in the first place.

EliRivers 8y ago
Stating that the person who said it is Solomon, and then making it clear that the speaker is less important that the words, serves to emphasise what is important. The man who wrote it DOES matter, it DOES alter the effect. Solomon wrote it, in the book Ecclesiastes! Of course that makes a difference, and the writer here deliberately drew our attention to that. Dismissing a famous writer as unimportant carries more weigh than dismissing a complete unknown as unimportant. This isn't some kind of simple logical operator statement that one can apply Boolean algebra to and simplify. This is already massively simplified; the writer expressed a lot of meaning in very few words. So much meaning, so compressed, that many readers think it's just the opposite - little information in too many words! People asking why this wasn't short are missing the fact that this IS the short version!