4 ms·

This is kind of a weird article. There were two cuts: >There were mornings following marriage blackout nights Maybe it's just me but I don't understand what

by treis 4y ago

This is kind of a weird article. There were two cuts: >There were mornings following marriage blackout nights Maybe it's just me but I don't understand what this sentence means. I've never heard of a "marriage blackout night" and can't parse what it means. The second cut was taking "the usual briefs and t-shirt" out of this sentence: >The other day I was sitting on my bed, the usual briefs and t-shirt, camera on the lines of my face and the new grey of my beard, when my wife came in the room as she was taking off the t-shirt she’d slept in "the usual briefs and t-shirt" is not a sexual statement. From what I can tell they've taken edits meant to improve the flow of the paragraph and, for reasons I can't see, taken them as editing sex out.

manuel_w 4y ago
> Maybe it's just me but I don't understand what this sentence means. I've never heard of a "marriage blackout night" and can't parse what it means. The author explains a few lines after: > In my version, that writer is also in his underwear, and the reader is informed that the couple is having some sad, drunken nights (« marriage blackout nights » doesn’t sound right and would have needed editing anyway, but bear with me). These are two expressions of, well, vulnerability.
- treis 4y ago
  Ah okay. IMHO the editors suggestion is way better. It's more impactful and to the point instead of diverging for a sentence about sad drunken nights: >We used to do it without video, but last March we started feeling the need to be visible to one another. The need to be seen and acknowledged by people you respect. >We used to do it without video, but last March we started feeling the need to be visible to one another. There were mornings following marriage blackout nights where you only wanted to be seen and acknowledged by people you respect.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
Agree, the writing seems off as an American, and it seems there are some comma splices. A good editor will tighten up the writing.
- mosburger 4y ago
  also very weird use of French-style « guillemet » quotation marks? (not weird because they're guillemets, just kinda weird because they're in an English language article and being used for emphasis instead of quotations)
scandox 4y ago
Well he explains both what he meant by "marriage blackout nights" and he also says he knew it was an awkward translation that needed editing. So I submit that you may not have read this carefully enough.
- treis 4y ago
  I do not dispute that. But with a clickbait headline and a long meandering path to the point I don't feel bad about skimming.
  - ajkjk 4y ago
    I think if you're skimming longform and then criticizing it you'd be better off just not reading it at all.
    - ajkjk 4y ago
      edit: okay that was a bit harsher than it needed to be, for internet points. Uh, just maybe don't criticize it without a closer read.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    The irony of this is delicious. You presume that the author had a "point" aside from the story that you mistook for a "long meandering path." One might wonder why an author would even care about reaching such an audience. Irony being that the author talked about exactly that cultural divide, but I'm guessing you missed that too.
ghufran_syed 4y ago
This reminds me of Thomas Sowell’s take on writing and editors specifically https://www.tsowell.com/About_Writing.html https://www.tsowell.com/About_Writing.html The section on editing is about 2/3 of the way through, although the whole thing is a great read. TLDR: writers don’t like being edited (particularly by bad writers acting as editors)
spywaregorilla 4y ago
Even more bizarre is that he feels the same! He agrees that this phrase needs editing and is still confused that it was flagged by his editor. > In my version, that writer is also in his underwear, and the reader is informed that the couple is having some sad, drunken nights (« marriage blackout nights » doesn’t sound right and would have needed editing anyway, but bear with me).
- coldtea 4y ago
  >Even more bizarre is that he feels the same! He agrees that this phrase needs editing and is still confused that it was flagged by his editor. Yeah, it's not like he spends 10 or more subtle paragraphs explaining both why he feels the phrase was important (despite needing editing for other reasons) and why he felt the shame (despite knowing he had not done anything shameful, except under a puritan gaze: he felt the shame because he was forced to view his prose under a different culture's understanding of sex).
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    As things are described, he writes paragraphs about his assumptions about the editor's reasoning for crossing out a nonsense phrase and fails to consider that the editor was not critiquing his artistic notions but rather just crossing off something that both of them agreed was bad. There's no particular evidence that the editor would not be amenable to simply rewriting the passage to make sense. It was bad writing and the editor removed it. The fact that he felt shame doesn't make his assumptions any more valid.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      >fails to consider that the editor was not critiquing his artistic notions but rather just crossing off something that both of them agreed was bad That's because the editors they worked with, and others he discussed such things, had a pattern to cross off specific things (regardless of whether both author and editor agreed they were bad), and those "crossing offs" revealed not just an editorial hand, but also an underlying ethics/ideology behind what they chose to focus on... >It was bad writing and the editor removed it. The fact that he felt shame doesn't make his assumptions any more valid. Way to miss the whole argument. It's not even like he didn't spell it out...
PreachSoup 4y ago
It's really funny from the perspective of the code review: Reviewer: This block of code is a bit confusing. Could you replace with a simpler and shorter version like this? (Suggest edit) Reveiewee: I agree with you. But nah I will keep it. Oops shipped!
- birdyrooster 4y ago
  Learning to say no was the single best thing I could do to improve my shared coding experience.
- rustyminnow 4y ago
  The proposed changes were "cuts". The reviewer said "remove these lines, we don't need them" not "can you clarify". So more like: Reviewer: I don't like this code - so we don't need it. Take it out. Reveiewee: Umm what? I can clean it up, but it's kind of essential
nwsm 4y ago
> Maybe it's just me but I don't understand what this sentence means. I've never heard of a "marriage blackout night" and can't parse what it means. The author explains the term and agrees it needs editing. > "the usual briefs and t-shirt" is not a sexual statement It makes the author's comment about his wife sexual. The author is suddenly fully clothed and mocking his naked wife, instead of sharing in their shared hungover, underdressed state. You also fail to mention the second example which is explicitly sexual. It seems as though you didn't read it all.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  As I read it, the author and wife both had t-shirts on, and the wife was taking hers off. There was no previous shared state where they were both less dressed than that.
coldtea 4y ago
>Maybe it's just me but I don't understand what this sentence means. I've never heard of a "marriage blackout night" and can't parse what it means. It means drinking inside the house into a blackout stupor (actual or not but meant for effect) during covid nights where you couldn't get outside. >"the usual briefs and t-shirt" is not a sexual statement. It's not to you, because of what the author already covered: you want sex to be a story, not a fact hanging in the air. In other words, you look whether the description has an explicit a sexual purpose. But this introduces nakedness and the human body without explicit sexual purpose. The sexuality is a background, not a plot, and the details help paint a picture, don't tell a story, and don't serve as plot devices. That's also what the american editor couldn't understand - and for the same reasons.
fsckboy 4y ago
> and the new grey of my beard if I ever write my novel, I'm going to include the line "I studied my face in the mirror before starting to scrape last night's hoar from my chin"

by treis 4y ago

manuel_w 4y ago

> Maybe it's just me but I don't understand what this sentence means. I've never heard of a "marriage blackout night" and can't parse what it means. The author explains a few lines after: > In my version, that writer is also in his underwear, and the reader is informed that the couple is having some sad, drunken nights (« marriage blackout nights » doesn’t sound right and would have needed editing anyway, but bear with me). These are two expressions of, well, vulnerability.

treis 4y ago
Ah okay. IMHO the editors suggestion is way better. It's more impactful and to the point instead of diverging for a sentence about sad drunken nights: >We used to do it without video, but last March we started feeling the need to be visible to one another. The need to be seen and acknowledged by people you respect. >We used to do it without video, but last March we started feeling the need to be visible to one another. There were mornings following marriage blackout nights where you only wanted to be seen and acknowledged by people you respect.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago

Agree, the writing seems off as an American, and it seems there are some comma splices. A good editor will tighten up the writing.

mosburger 4y ago
also very weird use of French-style « guillemet » quotation marks? (not weird because they're guillemets, just kinda weird because they're in an English language article and being used for emphasis instead of quotations)

scandox 4y ago

Well he explains both what he meant by "marriage blackout nights" and he also says he knew it was an awkward translation that needed editing. So I submit that you may not have read this carefully enough.

treis 4y ago
I do not dispute that. But with a clickbait headline and a long meandering path to the point I don't feel bad about skimming.
- ajkjk 4y ago
  I think if you're skimming longform and then criticizing it you'd be better off just not reading it at all.
  - ajkjk 4y ago
    edit: okay that was a bit harsher than it needed to be, for internet points. Uh, just maybe don't criticize it without a closer read.
- klyrs 4y ago
  The irony of this is delicious. You presume that the author had a "point" aside from the story that you mistook for a "long meandering path." One might wonder why an author would even care about reaching such an audience. Irony being that the author talked about exactly that cultural divide, but I'm guessing you missed that too.

ghufran_syed 4y ago

This reminds me of Thomas Sowell’s take on writing and editors specifically https://www.tsowell.com/About_Writing.html https://www.tsowell.com/About_Writing.html The section on editing is about 2/3 of the way through, although the whole thing is a great read. TLDR: writers don’t like being edited (particularly by bad writers acting as editors)

spywaregorilla 4y ago

Even more bizarre is that he feels the same! He agrees that this phrase needs editing and is still confused that it was flagged by his editor. > In my version, that writer is also in his underwear, and the reader is informed that the couple is having some sad, drunken nights (« marriage blackout nights » doesn’t sound right and would have needed editing anyway, but bear with me).

coldtea 4y ago
>Even more bizarre is that he feels the same! He agrees that this phrase needs editing and is still confused that it was flagged by his editor. Yeah, it's not like he spends 10 or more subtle paragraphs explaining both why he feels the phrase was important (despite needing editing for other reasons) and why he felt the shame (despite knowing he had not done anything shameful, except under a puritan gaze: he felt the shame because he was forced to view his prose under a different culture's understanding of sex).
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  As things are described, he writes paragraphs about his assumptions about the editor's reasoning for crossing out a nonsense phrase and fails to consider that the editor was not critiquing his artistic notions but rather just crossing off something that both of them agreed was bad. There's no particular evidence that the editor would not be amenable to simply rewriting the passage to make sense. It was bad writing and the editor removed it. The fact that he felt shame doesn't make his assumptions any more valid.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >fails to consider that the editor was not critiquing his artistic notions but rather just crossing off something that both of them agreed was bad That's because the editors they worked with, and others he discussed such things, had a pattern to cross off specific things (regardless of whether both author and editor agreed they were bad), and those "crossing offs" revealed not just an editorial hand, but also an underlying ethics/ideology behind what they chose to focus on... >It was bad writing and the editor removed it. The fact that he felt shame doesn't make his assumptions any more valid. Way to miss the whole argument. It's not even like he didn't spell it out...

PreachSoup 4y ago

It's really funny from the perspective of the code review: Reviewer: This block of code is a bit confusing. Could you replace with a simpler and shorter version like this? (Suggest edit) Reveiewee: I agree with you. But nah I will keep it. Oops shipped!

birdyrooster 4y ago
Learning to say no was the single best thing I could do to improve my shared coding experience.
rustyminnow 4y ago
The proposed changes were "cuts". The reviewer said "remove these lines, we don't need them" not "can you clarify". So more like: Reviewer: I don't like this code - so we don't need it. Take it out. Reveiewee: Umm what? I can clean it up, but it's kind of essential

nwsm 4y ago

> Maybe it's just me but I don't understand what this sentence means. I've never heard of a "marriage blackout night" and can't parse what it means. The author explains the term and agrees it needs editing. > "the usual briefs and t-shirt" is not a sexual statement It makes the author's comment about his wife sexual. The author is suddenly fully clothed and mocking his naked wife, instead of sharing in their shared hungover, underdressed state. You also fail to mention the second example which is explicitly sexual. It seems as though you didn't read it all.

robertlagrant 4y ago
As I read it, the author and wife both had t-shirts on, and the wife was taking hers off. There was no previous shared state where they were both less dressed than that.

coldtea 4y ago

>Maybe it's just me but I don't understand what this sentence means. I've never heard of a "marriage blackout night" and can't parse what it means. It means drinking inside the house into a blackout stupor (actual or not but meant for effect) during covid nights where you couldn't get outside. >"the usual briefs and t-shirt" is not a sexual statement. It's not to you, because of what the author already covered: you want sex to be a story, not a fact hanging in the air. In other words, you look whether the description has an explicit a sexual purpose. But this introduces nakedness and the human body without explicit sexual purpose. The sexuality is a background, not a plot, and the details help paint a picture, don't tell a story, and don't serve as plot devices. That's also what the american editor couldn't understand - and for the same reasons.

fsckboy 4y ago

> and the new grey of my beard if I ever write my novel, I'm going to include the line "I studied my face in the mirror before starting to scrape last night's hoar from my chin"