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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 w

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”

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”