4 ms·

This article's word choice using terms like "larping" and "cosplaying" to talk about Mark Twain on a history site seems like a less than ideal writing style; it

This article's word choice using terms like "larping" and "cosplaying" to talk about Mark Twain on a history site seems like a less than ideal writing style; it made me stop reading and facepalm for a moment.

eyelidlessness 3y ago
That’s understandable, but as I read it I thought “if these were contemporary terms he’d probably have embraced them”.
- JasserInicide 3y ago
  "larping" is different from being in an active military unit performing military maneuvers
  - physicles 3y ago
    Did you read the article? It's a stretch to call it an active military unit. As Twain himself wrote, the only maneuver they performed was to retreat, which they barely even knew how to do.
Talanes 3y ago
It's an 800 word article on a magazine publisher's website, how formal do you expect the language to be?
- notafraudster 3y ago
  It’s less the formality and more the hypermodern idioms that feel out of place (what’s the opposite of anachronistic?) in talking about a historical subject. Like, yes Mark Twain had the rizz and the Confedussies took the L but that’s probably not how I’d discuss it.
  - jaclaz 3y ago
    >what’s the opposite of anachronistic? Newfangled?
  - jwestbury 3y ago
    > what’s the opposite of anachronistic? In this case? Anachronistic still. Anachronistic just means something like "belonging to a different time period," and it doesn't strictly imply earlier or later.
    - bookofjoe 3y ago
      that this word goes both ways in time is the best thing I've learned so far today From Oxford Languages: >a·nach·ro·nism noun a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned. "everything was as it would have appeared in centuries past apart from one anachronism, a bright yellow construction crane" an act of attributing a custom, event, or object to a period to which it does not belong. "it is anachronism to suppose that the official morality of the age was mere window dressing"

eyelidlessness 3y ago

That’s understandable, but as I read it I thought “if these were contemporary terms he’d probably have embraced them”.

JasserInicide 3y ago
"larping" is different from being in an active military unit performing military maneuvers
- physicles 3y ago
  Did you read the article? It's a stretch to call it an active military unit. As Twain himself wrote, the only maneuver they performed was to retreat, which they barely even knew how to do.

Talanes 3y ago

It's an 800 word article on a magazine publisher's website, how formal do you expect the language to be?

notafraudster 3y ago
It’s less the formality and more the hypermodern idioms that feel out of place (what’s the opposite of anachronistic?) in talking about a historical subject. Like, yes Mark Twain had the rizz and the Confedussies took the L but that’s probably not how I’d discuss it.
- jaclaz 3y ago
  >what’s the opposite of anachronistic? Newfangled?
- jwestbury 3y ago
  > what’s the opposite of anachronistic? In this case? Anachronistic still. Anachronistic just means something like "belonging to a different time period," and it doesn't strictly imply earlier or later.
  - bookofjoe 3y ago
    that this word goes both ways in time is the best thing I've learned so far today From Oxford Languages: >a·nach·ro·nism noun a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned. "everything was as it would have appeared in centuries past apart from one anachronism, a bright yellow construction crane" an act of attributing a custom, event, or object to a period to which it does not belong. "it is anachronism to suppose that the official morality of the age was mere window dressing"