4 ms·

"The less energy they expend on your prose, the more they’ll have left for your ideas." - https://paulgraham.com/simply.html https://paulgraham.com/simply.html

by geor9e 3y ago

geor9e 3y ago
I can slog through hard-to-read novels. I can decrypt your linguistic puzzles. I sometimes write in a hard-to-read way, but never on purpose. The only people who write that way on purpose are imposters, who camouflage their lack of ideas in infinitely-interpretable word salads. I truly don't believe there is any idea, thinkable by any human mind, that can't be communicated in simple writing. It might take more words, since you aren't taking jargon shortcuts, but it forces you bring your ideas into the full sunlight to face judgement. In all that re-drafting work to communicate simply, entertainingly, and smoothly, the author is forced to improve their ideas.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  > truly don't believe there is any idea, thinkable by any human mind, that can't be communicated in simple writing I don’t see why this would be true at all. Language is an extremely recent innovation, with most biological and conscious experiences happening nowhere in the vicinity of it. Also we know there are ideas that can be expressed in one language and not in another, largely due to the need for cultural conditioning (i.e. repeated firsthand sensory experience) Here’s a trivial example: describe the color blue to someone who has never seen it themselves.
  - genman 3y ago
    I never understood this statement about the color blue like it has been claimed that ancient cultures may not have known it because they were not able to reproduce it and therefore were not able to knowingly see it. It reads nonsense to me as the sky is blue. It is a good example but I think describing sensory experience is not that difficult or impossible, for example I have never tried cocaine, regardless I have pretty good idea what it might feel like. But imagine if your language lacks some grammatical concepts like future.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      Well part of the issue is the statement you just made about blue is a totally different one than the statement I made.
      - genman 3y ago
        I added this nuance because it is very difficult to imagine somebody who (on Earth) has not seen the blue color. But it is still a good examples, as I have also admitted.
- Angostura 3y ago
  > I truly don't believe there is any idea, thinkable by any human mind, that can't be communicated in simple writing I have sympathy with this point of view when it comes to journalism, corporate writing, manuals and explanatory books. But novels (can be) more than that. Imagine a poem that followed your rules - yes, you could get the ideas across, but would it be poetry? It might be, but poems don't have to be simple - part of their joy can be their ambiguity, their multi-layered nature that tickles your brain without being direct about it. Novels can have this aspect too. The English language is a rich, nuanced, complex thing and it feels sad not to be able to take it out for a spin sometimes. That doesn't mean being deliberately obfuscatory (too fancy?) but it does mean allowing the novelist to tell a story in their own way. I think every reader has their sweet spot. I've certainly attempted to read novels that were too hard for me. I've read some where the prose was uninspiring. There is a happy medium which is readable and yet the language itself delights, stretches you just a little bit - where you come out feeling just a little smarter. The trouble is, everyone's 'happy medium' is a bit different... also that sweet spot can vary with time and mood. It's like music. Sometimes you might want something challenging, at other times something familiar and 'easy'
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    I'm right now reading Hitch-22 (Christopher Hitchens) and being, as you said, delighted by the language. Here's an example: (the context is his first meeting with Martin Amis, a lifelong friend) Lovers often invest their first meetings with retrospective significance, as if to try and conjure the elements of the numinous out of the stubborn witness of the everyday. Now that, I admire, and yet I can't imagine writing it. The only word that's at all unusual is "numinous."
dang 3y ago
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Modified3019 3y ago
  I strongly feel this is off base, frankly I’m a bit surprised at seeing your objection. To be clear, I don’t intend this to have a tone of hostility, just confusion. His post absolutely added value to this thread. If it was just the quote, then yeah I could kinda see it as pithy… but not really enough to make a fuss about. What I actually see though is a perfect summary of the link following it, which I’ve not come across before and does a fantastic job of putting into words the almost instinctual disrespect/disdain I feel for certain types of writing. In fact I find it coincidently mirroring the recent thread on what the goals of open source (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39253117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39253117) regarding the question “are you actually accomplishing what you wanted to with your actions”. The answer here of course depends on if the authors want to convey ideas/emotion, or just want to display status with the literary equivalent of “bling”. In short, I’m glad they dropped that link, and hope they are not discouraged from doing so in the future. Edited to better convey my intended objections
  - genman 3y ago
    I'm not sure what the author really wants to tell me. Is it a reflection of himself, or a review of a book, a advert of an author, I lost interest as he lost interest while reading J R. Perhaps everything worth telling had been told already for that moment.
- geor9e 3y ago
  I wasn't dismissing though, it's a beautiful quote on the problem of hard-to-read books, from one of my favorite essays written by the creator of Hacker News. After I read the author's post I realized the quote elegantly sums up their frustration, and the essay is great "further reading" for fans of the idea. Not all short comments have to have a thought-terminating purpose. I also immediately replied to the short comment with a long comment of my own, but since the quote stands well on it's own I didn't want to combine my thoughts with it.

"The less energy they expend on your prose, the more they’ll have left for your ideas." - https://paulgraham.com/simply.html https://paulgraham.com/simply.html

by geor9e 3y ago

"The less energy they expend on your prose, the more they’ll have left for your ideas." - https://paulgraham.com/simply.html https://paulgraham.com/simply.html

geor9e 3y ago

I can slog through hard-to-read novels. I can decrypt your linguistic puzzles. I sometimes write in a hard-to-read way, but never on purpose. The only people who write that way on purpose are imposters, who camouflage their lack of ideas in infinitely-interpretable word salads. I truly don't believe there is any idea, thinkable by any human mind, that can't be communicated in simple writing. It might take more words, since you aren't taking jargon shortcuts, but it forces you bring your ideas into the full sunlight to face judgement. In all that re-drafting work to communicate simply, entertainingly, and smoothly, the author is forced to improve their ideas.

ethanbond 3y ago
> truly don't believe there is any idea, thinkable by any human mind, that can't be communicated in simple writing I don’t see why this would be true at all. Language is an extremely recent innovation, with most biological and conscious experiences happening nowhere in the vicinity of it. Also we know there are ideas that can be expressed in one language and not in another, largely due to the need for cultural conditioning (i.e. repeated firsthand sensory experience) Here’s a trivial example: describe the color blue to someone who has never seen it themselves.
- genman 3y ago
  I never understood this statement about the color blue like it has been claimed that ancient cultures may not have known it because they were not able to reproduce it and therefore were not able to knowingly see it. It reads nonsense to me as the sky is blue. It is a good example but I think describing sensory experience is not that difficult or impossible, for example I have never tried cocaine, regardless I have pretty good idea what it might feel like. But imagine if your language lacks some grammatical concepts like future.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Well part of the issue is the statement you just made about blue is a totally different one than the statement I made.
    - genman 3y ago
      I added this nuance because it is very difficult to imagine somebody who (on Earth) has not seen the blue color. But it is still a good examples, as I have also admitted.
Angostura 3y ago
> I truly don't believe there is any idea, thinkable by any human mind, that can't be communicated in simple writing I have sympathy with this point of view when it comes to journalism, corporate writing, manuals and explanatory books. But novels (can be) more than that. Imagine a poem that followed your rules - yes, you could get the ideas across, but would it be poetry? It might be, but poems don't have to be simple - part of their joy can be their ambiguity, their multi-layered nature that tickles your brain without being direct about it. Novels can have this aspect too. The English language is a rich, nuanced, complex thing and it feels sad not to be able to take it out for a spin sometimes. That doesn't mean being deliberately obfuscatory (too fancy?) but it does mean allowing the novelist to tell a story in their own way. I think every reader has their sweet spot. I've certainly attempted to read novels that were too hard for me. I've read some where the prose was uninspiring. There is a happy medium which is readable and yet the language itself delights, stretches you just a little bit - where you come out feeling just a little smarter. The trouble is, everyone's 'happy medium' is a bit different... also that sweet spot can vary with time and mood. It's like music. Sometimes you might want something challenging, at other times something familiar and 'easy'
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  I'm right now reading Hitch-22 (Christopher Hitchens) and being, as you said, delighted by the language. Here's an example: (the context is his first meeting with Martin Amis, a lifelong friend) Lovers often invest their first meetings with retrospective significance, as if to try and conjure the elements of the numinous out of the stubborn witness of the everyday. Now that, I admire, and yet I can't imagine writing it. The only word that's at all unusual is "numinous."

dang 3y ago

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Modified3019 3y ago
I strongly feel this is off base, frankly I’m a bit surprised at seeing your objection. To be clear, I don’t intend this to have a tone of hostility, just confusion. His post absolutely added value to this thread. If it was just the quote, then yeah I could kinda see it as pithy… but not really enough to make a fuss about. What I actually see though is a perfect summary of the link following it, which I’ve not come across before and does a fantastic job of putting into words the almost instinctual disrespect/disdain I feel for certain types of writing. In fact I find it coincidently mirroring the recent thread on what the goals of open source (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39253117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39253117) regarding the question “are you actually accomplishing what you wanted to with your actions”. The answer here of course depends on if the authors want to convey ideas/emotion, or just want to display status with the literary equivalent of “bling”. In short, I’m glad they dropped that link, and hope they are not discouraged from doing so in the future. Edited to better convey my intended objections
- genman 3y ago
  I'm not sure what the author really wants to tell me. Is it a reflection of himself, or a review of a book, a advert of an author, I lost interest as he lost interest while reading J R. Perhaps everything worth telling had been told already for that moment.
geor9e 3y ago
I wasn't dismissing though, it's a beautiful quote on the problem of hard-to-read books, from one of my favorite essays written by the creator of Hacker News. After I read the author's post I realized the quote elegantly sums up their frustration, and the essay is great "further reading" for fans of the idea. Not all short comments have to have a thought-terminating purpose. I also immediately replied to the short comment with a long comment of my own, but since the quote stands well on it's own I didn't want to combine my thoughts with it.