3 ms·
Hundred Pages vs. 11 Words
- riwsky 3y agoThis prose desperately needs an editor and a rewrite pass, which would be unremarkable in technical fare—but in an argument about the information density of prose, it severely undermines the author’s trustworthiness.
- riwsky 3y agoTo illustrate: “The answer is not immediately obvious. Indeed, word problems in these forms are not only long-winded but also prone to misinterpretation. I may have wanted to ask you something but you may have understood (and answered) something else entirely. Moreover, I may have misspecified what I originally wanted to ask. All in all, this seems like a rather unfortunate way of asking questions of such nature. What if I change it to something like this instead:” Could shrink to: “The answer is not obvious. Wordy descriptions of math problems are prone to miscommunication—and tediousness. Compare:”
- pkoird 3y agoGuilty as charged. I'm definitely aware of my tendency to repeat things. In my admittedly flimsy defense, it stems from my fear of being misinterpreted.
- eyeundersand 3y agoFunny seeing you here. I'm 99 percent certain you went to school with my brother at Pulchowk. Blog looks interesting. Will keep an eye out.
- itchyouch 3y agoSteven pinker has a TED talk about the ambiguity of language. And he makes a compelling point that the ambiguity in language is actually a feature, rather than a bug. The reason being that the ambiguity allows for the renegotiation of relationships.