8 ms·

Completely agree! This was disjointed and didn't have a point. Wish I could downvote.

Veen 4y ago
Part of the disjointedness comes from the writer's apparent obsession with over-simple language and very short sentences made by chopping up longer sentences. It's a good example of what happens when inexperienced writers rely on readability tools like Readable (it's on the Readable blog).
- stavros 4y ago
  > It’s natural to emulate what we see online. But, going overboard on the ‘positive vibes’ may affect your content. Agreed, come on, splitting the sentence there just made it worse. Unlike many people, I'm not opposed to sentences that start with "but", but here it serves no purpose. It's not like we have an attention span of six words.
- samhw 4y ago
  Yeah, I don't want to be cruel, in case the author is reading this, but it really is uniquely egregious writing (no toxic positivity here!). The broken-up sentences you mention are. Awkward and mostly grammatically inco. Rrect as a result. They seem weirdly unaware of the incredibly basic writer's injunction to vary your sentence length. There's no rhythm or cadence to it. You can literally feel the author grimly trudging toward the target word count. It feels completely disconnected from anything real, full of unevocative abstract nouns connected with unevocative abstract verbs. "Don't be too hard on yourself if you're struggling with negative thoughts" - well, what the fuck do you think 'negative thoughts' are? Reading this felt like having my teeth pulled. I think the biggest problem, though, is that they really just do not have anything valuable to say. I wouldn't be surprised if it were written at gunpoint. We used to write essays on random subjects instead of lines as a punishment at school, and I think those essays were more enthusiastic and insightful than this one. It just meanders along, with no overarching direction or purpose, from useless bromide to useless bromide, until they get to the word count and stop, and that's it.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  I hate this. I admit I often get carried about by combining my thoughts into massive complex sentences, but the reverse is even worse. I feel like I have to write like I’m Dr Suess. I get why they want you to simplify your righting, but iirc they tend to want you to target a 9th grade level and if I remember correctly when I was a senior half the people in that class could barely fucking read. One thing I could use is an autocorrect that works. My phone things it’s appropriate to randomly change worlds like die->sue but is helpless when some other word is a single character off.
throw__away7391 4y ago
That's because the author seems to be firmly anchored in a coastal elite bubble. In particular this phrase: > invalidate someone's lived experience ...is particularly cringe-inducing. These are code words. This is not how any normal human in the English speaking world has ever spoken prior to exposure to a particular brand of (most often quite expensive) education, and let's be clear--that's the whole point. People train themselves to use this language as a way to demonstrate their membership or desired membership in the current socio-economic elite. It is not really any different from learning to use the "correct" fork at a 19th century dinner party, even to the point where watered-down versions of both trickling into middle class. So let's say now you've gone and learned these phrases and weaponized your speech in this manner, great on you right? Wrong! You've lost your voice, everything you say is now constrained without the confines of this language and carries connotations set by someone else that overshadow whatever you may wish to express, but more importantly, your speech is now a constant performance. Just as how nourishment was not the point of dinner, what's being discussed is not the point of conversation when using this language. People who talk this way occasionally slip up and deviate slightly and you can hear in their voice how much anxiety this causes them, usually some small nervous joke follows. Crippling anxiety is perhaps the defining trait of these folks, to the point that many many of them, a far higher percentage than you'd expect naturally, are on some kind of anti-anxiety drugs. This risk of saying something that puts you out of step with the tastemakers grows enormously as your investment increases, better to say nothing of substance at all while using lots and lots of this language and drop in as many of these code words as possible.
- Kaze404 4y ago
  What? That's a completely normal sentence. I don't understand what in particular triggered this rant full of strawmen.
  - samhw 4y ago
    I think you're illustrating that person's point. I'm a liberal, with-the-times person in a liberal, with-the-times city, and I cringe at the thought of ever uttering the words "invalidate someone's lived experience". Aside from anything else, what the fuck does it even mean? I don't think it's a bad rule of writing to speak in simple, clear, plain words, not glutinous agglomerations of abstract verbiage which evoke nothing. (While we're at it, have you considered whether you might actually be a man made of straw?)

Veen 4y ago

Part of the disjointedness comes from the writer's apparent obsession with over-simple language and very short sentences made by chopping up longer sentences. It's a good example of what happens when inexperienced writers rely on readability tools like Readable (it's on the Readable blog).

stavros 4y ago
> It’s natural to emulate what we see online. But, going overboard on the ‘positive vibes’ may affect your content. Agreed, come on, splitting the sentence there just made it worse. Unlike many people, I'm not opposed to sentences that start with "but", but here it serves no purpose. It's not like we have an attention span of six words.
samhw 4y ago
Yeah, I don't want to be cruel, in case the author is reading this, but it really is uniquely egregious writing (no toxic positivity here!). The broken-up sentences you mention are. Awkward and mostly grammatically inco. Rrect as a result. They seem weirdly unaware of the incredibly basic writer's injunction to vary your sentence length. There's no rhythm or cadence to it. You can literally feel the author grimly trudging toward the target word count. It feels completely disconnected from anything real, full of unevocative abstract nouns connected with unevocative abstract verbs. "Don't be too hard on yourself if you're struggling with negative thoughts" - well, what the fuck do you think 'negative thoughts' are? Reading this felt like having my teeth pulled. I think the biggest problem, though, is that they really just do not have anything valuable to say. I wouldn't be surprised if it were written at gunpoint. We used to write essays on random subjects instead of lines as a punishment at school, and I think those essays were more enthusiastic and insightful than this one. It just meanders along, with no overarching direction or purpose, from useless bromide to useless bromide, until they get to the word count and stop, and that's it.
the_only_law 4y ago
I hate this. I admit I often get carried about by combining my thoughts into massive complex sentences, but the reverse is even worse. I feel like I have to write like I’m Dr Suess. I get why they want you to simplify your righting, but iirc they tend to want you to target a 9th grade level and if I remember correctly when I was a senior half the people in that class could barely fucking read. One thing I could use is an autocorrect that works. My phone things it’s appropriate to randomly change worlds like die->sue but is helpless when some other word is a single character off.

throw__away7391 4y ago

That's because the author seems to be firmly anchored in a coastal elite bubble. In particular this phrase: > invalidate someone's lived experience ...is particularly cringe-inducing. These are code words. This is not how any normal human in the English speaking world has ever spoken prior to exposure to a particular brand of (most often quite expensive) education, and let's be clear--that's the whole point. People train themselves to use this language as a way to demonstrate their membership or desired membership in the current socio-economic elite. It is not really any different from learning to use the "correct" fork at a 19th century dinner party, even to the point where watered-down versions of both trickling into middle class. So let's say now you've gone and learned these phrases and weaponized your speech in this manner, great on you right? Wrong! You've lost your voice, everything you say is now constrained without the confines of this language and carries connotations set by someone else that overshadow whatever you may wish to express, but more importantly, your speech is now a constant performance. Just as how nourishment was not the point of dinner, what's being discussed is not the point of conversation when using this language. People who talk this way occasionally slip up and deviate slightly and you can hear in their voice how much anxiety this causes them, usually some small nervous joke follows. Crippling anxiety is perhaps the defining trait of these folks, to the point that many many of them, a far higher percentage than you'd expect naturally, are on some kind of anti-anxiety drugs. This risk of saying something that puts you out of step with the tastemakers grows enormously as your investment increases, better to say nothing of substance at all while using lots and lots of this language and drop in as many of these code words as possible.

Kaze404 4y ago
What? That's a completely normal sentence. I don't understand what in particular triggered this rant full of strawmen.
- samhw 4y ago
  I think you're illustrating that person's point. I'm a liberal, with-the-times person in a liberal, with-the-times city, and I cringe at the thought of ever uttering the words "invalidate someone's lived experience". Aside from anything else, what the fuck does it even mean? I don't think it's a bad rule of writing to speak in simple, clear, plain words, not glutinous agglomerations of abstract verbiage which evoke nothing. (While we're at it, have you considered whether you might actually be a man made of straw?)