4 ms·
Corn-Pone
- h2odragon 5y ago> Our prose standard, three quarters of a century ago, was ornate and diffuse; some authority or other changed it in the direction of compactness and simplicity, and conformity followed, without argument. I wonder if Twain would classify current forms of written discourse as "literate"
- webmaven 5y ago> I wonder if Twain would classify current forms of written discourse as "literate" Why wouldn't he? You may be succumbing to survivorship bias. Twain was in his own time an outlier, and much written discourse wasn't particularly distinguishable from the dreck one finds in partisan outlets today, except in the most superficial ways. Twain's own style was often rather "folksy" rather than "literate" (but you would have to call it "alliterate" or "vernacular" rather than "illiterate") to get his more radical opinions past people's defenses. It is worth noting that in his attempts to be seen as a more serious writer rather than "just" a humorist, he did also write in a more formal style, but those are his least known works today.
- webmaven 5y agoNot having encountered this particular essay before, I had to check whether it was actually Twain's (and not a GPT-generated "Essay by Mark Twain on conformity").
- gabrielsroka 5y agoFrom 2008, or earlier https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=189873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=189873