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An author’s intent doesn’t change what an author actually said, nor does it mean we should assume it means something different. “Surprise” in any form should us
by cgriswald 5y ago
An author’s intent doesn’t change what an author actually said, nor does it mean we should assume it means something different. “Surprise” in any form should usually not be used, but if it is, the two phrases are still equivalent unless the context dictates otherwise or the author makes his use explicit.
- medstrom 5y ago>An author’s intent doesn’t change what an author actually said This is an odd view of communication. It works for whole stories, e.g. you can decouple Heinlein from his books and claim that The Moon is a Harsh Mistress primarily says something other than Heinlein actually had in mind, artistically speaking, but it's a very odd stance for single words. Communication is two-way, it has everything to do with both the speaker and listener. Words don't have any meaning except for what the speaker and listener assign to them. There is no "what the author actually said", there is only what they intended to say (and how it was interpreted). In the role of listener/reader, your whole job is to figure out what the author intended. Otherwise I'm not sure we agree on what reading even is.
- cgriswald 5y agoWe don’t have two-way communication or any context to understand the intention. We have “To our surprise…,” and “Surprisingly,….” These phrases in the context of writing, absent other context, have the same meaning. This isn’t really an opinion. An author’s intention cannot be inferred without additional context. So no, the author’s intention per se does not matter in the context of this conversation. Extending that to mean it never matters isn’t at all what I said.
- medstrom 5y agoOkay, but "surprisingly" has more possible meanings than "to our surprise", imo. How come you disagree?
- cgriswald 5y agoWhenever a speaker is talking about opinion or emotion, it is the speakers' opinion or emotion unless otherwise specified or contextualized. If I say, "We should eat pizza," the correct interpretation is that it is my opinion we should eat pizza. If I say, "In my opinion, we should eat pizza," the meaning is the same. Surprise isn't an objective fact. It's a statement of emotion or subjective experience or whatever you'd like to call it. It is often a consequence of an objective difference between an expectation and a result. (An expectation can be subjective, but whether someone holds that expectation is either true or false.) But surprise isn't that objective difference, it's the subjective response. So if I say, "Surprisingly, the sun rose today," absent other context it means I find it surprising that the sun rose today. It doesn't mean, "Everyone should find it surprising that the sun rose today." For that, I would need to add more context or you would need to bring in some assumptions that aren't supported by my statement. So, this is equivalent to "To my surprise, the sun rose today."
- CRConrad 5y ago> These phrases in the context of writing, absent other context, have the same meaning. This isn’t really an opinion. In a thread where others explain how to them, they have different meanings. It is quite obviously an opinion.