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That sentence is perfectly clear to me, and English is not my first language. I don't even perceive the style as pretentious or "wordy": it seems the appropriat

by Camillo 15y ago

That sentence is perfectly clear to me, and English is not my first language. I don't even perceive the style as pretentious or "wordy": it seems the appropriate register for a magazine like the Economist.

pm90 15y ago
it seems the appropriate register for a magazine like the Economist. I guess that may be true, but why should it be that way? It could have been restated as 'the theory's good, I had expected more predictions'.
- anigbrowl 15y ago
  It could not, because the theory as presented in the book is flawed (according to the reviewer). One could restate the ideas more simply, but to do so accurately would require many more words.
- jgamman 15y ago
  The Economist has a highly focused strategy on appealing to particular demographics - high language comprehension skills help position it in the high-value part of the market. It's obviously working, last time i checked it was making huge market share gains and profitability precisely because it was focusing on 5% of the world's richest people, not the local or bulk. I read it every week and it is very well written. don't confuse that with believing what it says - in today's lingo, it's definitely a 1%er...
- gte910h 15y ago
  Because that's not exactly the same thing. People who don't like big words work to continually reassure themselves they're missing no precision of meaning or accuracy of tone. They often are. The selection has a grade level of 15.73 (aka, Junior in college) Doesn't mean everything should be expressed at the college reading level, but it doesn't mean everything else should be expressed at the reading level of a 6th grader. To move this sentence down to the flesch reading level of a 6th grader requires the following: >The intuition behind the theory is nonetheless compelling, which makes the scarcity of policy prescriptions frustrating to >Acemoglu's idea make sense to me. I'm still mad and unsettled that it does not tell the government what to do to fix the problem. FK Grade level of 5.8 And it had to go into the 1st person to do so, Try to write the sentence, capturing all the nuance of what he's saying and keeping it in the third person. Requires several more lines.

by Camillo 15y ago

pm90 15y ago

it seems the appropriate register for a magazine like the Economist. I guess that may be true, but why should it be that way? It could have been restated as 'the theory's good, I had expected more predictions'.

anigbrowl 15y ago
It could not, because the theory as presented in the book is flawed (according to the reviewer). One could restate the ideas more simply, but to do so accurately would require many more words.
jgamman 15y ago
The Economist has a highly focused strategy on appealing to particular demographics - high language comprehension skills help position it in the high-value part of the market. It's obviously working, last time i checked it was making huge market share gains and profitability precisely because it was focusing on 5% of the world's richest people, not the local or bulk. I read it every week and it is very well written. don't confuse that with believing what it says - in today's lingo, it's definitely a 1%er...
gte910h 15y ago
Because that's not exactly the same thing. People who don't like big words work to continually reassure themselves they're missing no precision of meaning or accuracy of tone. They often are. The selection has a grade level of 15.73 (aka, Junior in college) Doesn't mean everything should be expressed at the college reading level, but it doesn't mean everything else should be expressed at the reading level of a 6th grader. To move this sentence down to the flesch reading level of a 6th grader requires the following: >The intuition behind the theory is nonetheless compelling, which makes the scarcity of policy prescriptions frustrating to >Acemoglu's idea make sense to me. I'm still mad and unsettled that it does not tell the government what to do to fix the problem. FK Grade level of 5.8 And it had to go into the 1st person to do so, Try to write the sentence, capturing all the nuance of what he's saying and keeping it in the third person. Requires several more lines.