5 ms·

> it has four, going on five, esoteric proper nouns in one sentence. it's not hard to parse, but it isn't something I love reading either. Even so. If the sent

> it has four, going on five, esoteric proper nouns in one sentence. it's not hard to parse, but it isn't something I love reading either. Even so. If the sentence was something like "Kowalski's Mosquito soared high above the Führerbunker, Hitler's final redoubt in Berlin," no one would find that problematic. McCaffrey's sentence is only troubling if you've already assumed that made-up names are inherently bad writing.

bmacho 2y ago
Made-up names are bad to read for me too. I don't like too many things in my head with unfamiliar names. I can't think of things with unfamiliar names, and it bothers me.
- PhasmaFelis 2y ago
  That sounds very unpleasant. I'm sorry. With all respect, though, I think we can agree that that's an issue with the reader, not the writer? If I read a novel with a lot of Vietnamese characters and locations, say, I might well have some difficulty telling them apart, but that doesn't mean that Vietnamese names are bad writing.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - sideshowb 2y ago
    You seem to be suggesting that it's good writing style to make your reader struggle as if with a foreign language?
    - PhasmaFelis 2y ago
      My original example was going to be, a young person reading an adult book with a large vocabulary. I decided that might come off as rude, so I changed it, and maybe lost some impact. Put more bluntly: having a reading disability does not obligate all authors to write to your reading level.
      - sideshowb 2y ago
        I guess I don't interpret bmacho's comment as relating to disability, just a general objection to excessive weird words a la https://xkcd.com/483/ https://xkcd.com/483/
      - Suppafly 2y ago
        >Put more bluntly: having a reading disability does not obligate all authors to write to your reading level. This, although it's not even always a disability related issue. Sometimes things in life aren't made for you, and you'll be happier understanding that. It's similar to complaining that an advanced mathematics textbook wasn't understandable given your baseline understanding of maths. It's not being written for you.
    - CamperBob2 2y ago
      Ever read A Clockwork Orange? Guessing that didn't go over well with you.
      - sideshowb 2y ago
        Oh that was great. In no small part because Burgess's slang is rooted in real etymology so it's not entirely a foreign language so much as creative use of our own. Snowcrash is similar in this respect.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > but that doesn't mean that Vietnamese names are bad writing. Not everybody agrees: https://www.jesusandmo.net/wp-content/uploads/2011-05-31.png https://www.jesusandmo.net/wp-content/uploads/2011-05-31.png On a more serious note, I watched a Chinese drama with my parents, and the fact that the characters' names were in Chinese caused enormous problems for them.† This is hard for me to empathize with, but clearly it's something that some people can't handle. † Another thing that caused them problems is that Chinese characters are addressed differently by different people, sometimes by name, sometimes by title, sometimes by a kinship term that will vary with the relationship between speaker and addressee.... That's easier for me to empathize with; it causes difficulties for me too, but those difficulties are mostly in the nature of nailing down a bunch of different pieces of information about each character, not in the nature of "why are you speaking a language that isn't English?!?"
    - autumnstwilight 2y ago
      I don't think foreign names are 'bad writing' but I do experience more difficulty keeping track of names that are in a language I'm completely unfamiliar with. English names already have an allocated space in my brain. Fake names that follow the pattern of English names are usually easy to slot into the existing system. Names in my second language can be slightly more difficult but I seem to have developed a similar system of breaking them down and storing them. But names that don't fit into patterns I'm familiar with can be like trying to memorize completely arbitrary strings of information. For example (grabbing some Aztec mythology names) "Tlaltecuhtli" won't be accurately stored beyond the first syllable or two until I've seen it many, many times, and if there's another character called "Tlazolteotl" I'm likely to mix them up.
      - Modified3019 2y ago
        Same. One of my favorite duplicate file/similar image finders is https://github.com/qarmin/czkawka https://github.com/qarmin/czkawka But I will never ever remember how to spell the name. It’s like the perfect combination of letters that are just alien to me. I usually find it by searching “hiccup github duplicate finder”
- Jedd 2y ago
  > Made-up names are bad to read for me too. Aren't all names made-up?
  - permo-w 2y ago
    call them new names then
mannykannot 2y ago
The thing about the alternative you offer is that none of the names in it are made-up, other than that Kowalski may be a fictional character. There is nothing inherently wrong with made-up names, and some genres will require more than others, but I suspect that sentences in the style of McCaffrey's are partly intended to draw in the reader who feels, vaguely and probably subconsciously, as someone who has the inside scoop on esoteric knowledge from having deduced what sort of entities these names denote. To be clear, I am not immune to the effect, and it can be pleasant in small doses if the rest of the story is engaging.
- PhasmaFelis 2y ago
  That maybe very well be true, but it still doesn't indicate any problem with the McCaffrey sentence. Also note that it's the start of the second chapter, so some of those nouns may have been introduced already.
  - mannykannot 2y ago
    My first paragraph is very well true. The second one says "there is nothing inherently wrong with made-up names", which seems to be in agreement with what you hold to be true. I am also entirely in agreement with the position that no significant criticism of the author can be made from a single sentence, especially when presented without context.
Suppafly 2y ago
>McCaffrey's sentence is only troubling if you've already assumed that made-up names are inherently bad writing. This is honestly the core component of most criticisms of genre fiction as far as I've seen.

bmacho 2y ago

Made-up names are bad to read for me too. I don't like too many things in my head with unfamiliar names. I can't think of things with unfamiliar names, and it bothers me.

PhasmaFelis 2y ago
That sounds very unpleasant. I'm sorry. With all respect, though, I think we can agree that that's an issue with the reader, not the writer? If I read a novel with a lot of Vietnamese characters and locations, say, I might well have some difficulty telling them apart, but that doesn't mean that Vietnamese names are bad writing.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- sideshowb 2y ago
  You seem to be suggesting that it's good writing style to make your reader struggle as if with a foreign language?
  - PhasmaFelis 2y ago
    My original example was going to be, a young person reading an adult book with a large vocabulary. I decided that might come off as rude, so I changed it, and maybe lost some impact. Put more bluntly: having a reading disability does not obligate all authors to write to your reading level.
    - sideshowb 2y ago
      I guess I don't interpret bmacho's comment as relating to disability, just a general objection to excessive weird words a la https://xkcd.com/483/ https://xkcd.com/483/
    - Suppafly 2y ago
      >Put more bluntly: having a reading disability does not obligate all authors to write to your reading level. This, although it's not even always a disability related issue. Sometimes things in life aren't made for you, and you'll be happier understanding that. It's similar to complaining that an advanced mathematics textbook wasn't understandable given your baseline understanding of maths. It's not being written for you.
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    Ever read A Clockwork Orange? Guessing that didn't go over well with you.
    - sideshowb 2y ago
      Oh that was great. In no small part because Burgess's slang is rooted in real etymology so it's not entirely a foreign language so much as creative use of our own. Snowcrash is similar in this respect.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > but that doesn't mean that Vietnamese names are bad writing. Not everybody agrees: https://www.jesusandmo.net/wp-content/uploads/2011-05-31.png https://www.jesusandmo.net/wp-content/uploads/2011-05-31.png On a more serious note, I watched a Chinese drama with my parents, and the fact that the characters' names were in Chinese caused enormous problems for them.† This is hard for me to empathize with, but clearly it's something that some people can't handle. † Another thing that caused them problems is that Chinese characters are addressed differently by different people, sometimes by name, sometimes by title, sometimes by a kinship term that will vary with the relationship between speaker and addressee.... That's easier for me to empathize with; it causes difficulties for me too, but those difficulties are mostly in the nature of nailing down a bunch of different pieces of information about each character, not in the nature of "why are you speaking a language that isn't English?!?"
  - autumnstwilight 2y ago
    I don't think foreign names are 'bad writing' but I do experience more difficulty keeping track of names that are in a language I'm completely unfamiliar with. English names already have an allocated space in my brain. Fake names that follow the pattern of English names are usually easy to slot into the existing system. Names in my second language can be slightly more difficult but I seem to have developed a similar system of breaking them down and storing them. But names that don't fit into patterns I'm familiar with can be like trying to memorize completely arbitrary strings of information. For example (grabbing some Aztec mythology names) "Tlaltecuhtli" won't be accurately stored beyond the first syllable or two until I've seen it many, many times, and if there's another character called "Tlazolteotl" I'm likely to mix them up.
    - Modified3019 2y ago
      Same. One of my favorite duplicate file/similar image finders is https://github.com/qarmin/czkawka https://github.com/qarmin/czkawka But I will never ever remember how to spell the name. It’s like the perfect combination of letters that are just alien to me. I usually find it by searching “hiccup github duplicate finder”
Jedd 2y ago
> Made-up names are bad to read for me too. Aren't all names made-up?
- permo-w 2y ago
  call them new names then

mannykannot 2y ago

The thing about the alternative you offer is that none of the names in it are made-up, other than that Kowalski may be a fictional character. There is nothing inherently wrong with made-up names, and some genres will require more than others, but I suspect that sentences in the style of McCaffrey's are partly intended to draw in the reader who feels, vaguely and probably subconsciously, as someone who has the inside scoop on esoteric knowledge from having deduced what sort of entities these names denote. To be clear, I am not immune to the effect, and it can be pleasant in small doses if the rest of the story is engaging.

PhasmaFelis 2y ago
That maybe very well be true, but it still doesn't indicate any problem with the McCaffrey sentence. Also note that it's the start of the second chapter, so some of those nouns may have been introduced already.
- mannykannot 2y ago
  My first paragraph is very well true. The second one says "there is nothing inherently wrong with made-up names", which seems to be in agreement with what you hold to be true. I am also entirely in agreement with the position that no significant criticism of the author can be made from a single sentence, especially when presented without context.

Suppafly 2y ago

>McCaffrey's sentence is only troubling if you've already assumed that made-up names are inherently bad writing. This is honestly the core component of most criticisms of genre fiction as far as I've seen.