7 ms·
> show don’t tell [...] she informed one writer that their “story is certainly worth telling,” but they “describe people and events from a distance instead of d
by hyperthesis 3y ago
> show don’t tell [...] she informed one writer that their “story is certainly worth telling,” but they “describe people and events from a distance instead of dramatizing them, developing scenes in which the reader discovers what kind of people they are instead of being told.”
The second part of the quote (from "developing...") seems to be saying tell don't show. Is the quote mangled or I am misparsing?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- LeonB 3y agoI think I see how you’re interpreting the sentence. Imagine instead the word “and” in place of the comma before “developing”. The letter writers wants the author to be “dramatising (their events) AND developing scenes in which the reader…”
- hyperthesis 3y agoThanks, I think you're right. It seems weird to have a parallel structure where the roles are swapped - but Toni Morrison would know better than me! Maybe it works better in the original context. To see the context, I think I'd have to visit the "Random House archives at Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library", though they do have a website: https://library.columbia.edu/libraries/rbml.html https://library.columbia.edu/libraries/rbml.html
- hyperthesis 3y agoParentheses give a sensible parse for me (or nested further): describe people and events from a distance instead of (dramatizing them, developing scenes in which the reader discovers what kind of people they are) instead of being told.
- qyph 3y agoYou have it precisely backwards. "Developing scenes in which the reader discovers what kind of people they are" is synonymous with "show" and "being told" is literally a form of "tell."
- hyperthesis 3y agoThe quote is introduced with "but", and the first part is the other way around ("...distance instead of dramatizing...").
- soneca 3y agoThere is a second “instead of” in the last part of the sentence that gives the proper context, in my reading
- hyperthesis 3y agoThe two instances of "instead of" have opposing senses. The grammar can't be interpreted without the semantics. Anyway, it seems other people find this OK, which is interesting to me. Below is the context in TFA, and the quote's form with show/tell placeholders: she informed one writer that their “story is certainly worth telling,” but they "[tell] instead of [show], [show] instead of [tell]." I can read the second part as a directive (I'd use a semi-colon instead of a comma to show this myself). I bet the original letter's connection (instead of "but they" in TFA) supports this. It feeds into my nascent theory that grammar is not necessary for everyday human communication, and its function is ornamental, like patterns on clothing, signifying social position. (Of course, it is useful in precise technical exposition and argument; though there's still greater precision in numerical quantification and first order logic.) Grammar is the greatest joy in life, don't you find?
- soneca 3y agoI don’t know English grammar, but I don’t think inverting the position of the show/tell would be against Brazilian Portuguese grammar. I think a grammar is certainly necessary for everyday communication though. Not the academically decided normative grammar for a whole language. But every verbal communication follows grammatical rules, most of the time different from the written grammar and normative grammar, but rather a grammar agreed among the people that form a group that speaks that local grammar.
- hyperthesis 3y agoMaybe I'm unneccesarily inferring parentheses from the quotation marks, like: but they (tell don't show, show don't tell). It reads differently without them.