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Then again, some people will compain if you speak in uncertain terms. It seems to me that there could perchance be another problem in our communication, namely
by shiranaihito 18y ago
Then again, some people will compain if you speak in uncertain terms.
It seems to me that there could perchance be another problem in our communication, namely that of people of a certain persuasion expressing themselves in quite a convoluted manner perhaps better fitting a person in the process of producing a work of literature, in an attempt at asserting their intellectual prowess.
We have something to say, but we encode it in a carrier signal of verbal acrobatics.
It's logical because intelligent people want to appear intelligent too, but communication shouldn't be a competition of who can bend the English language in the most ways while still saying something.. and that was close too!
Then there's Programming Reddit, where (often very intelligent) people gather to argue about things and out-smug each other while still being more right than their opponents. I read it because there's still a lot of useful information floating around, but it's getting tiresome to read conversations that have a "winner".
"C-C-C-COMBO-BREAKER!!"
And what's with the Franklin quote? Was it normal to write "I walk'd to the store and purchas'd a banana" in those days?
Quick - someone hit me with a "Never start a sentence with 'and'"!
- jules 18y ago> Then again, some people will compain if you speak in uncertain terms. This is my experience too, especially on the internet.
- michaelkeenan 18y agoI agree that Franklin's advice might lead to explicit dominance behavior being replaced by the subtler status-seeking antics of convoluted text. That would still be an improvement in my opinion. Fortunately, the internet has an existing idiom for "simplify and shorten your message", which is of course: "tl;dr". Franklin's prose could get very convoluted! I don't know whether he was showing off, or whether it was just the style of the time that he didn't think to change. He was fond of listing things in dense paragraphs so it's unfortunate that bulletpoints weren't invented until 1958 (seriously). Modern pundits are aware that simplicity can lead to more effective messages; we have widely-publicized advice like "Keep It Simple, Stupid". Maybe that's a modern insight or fashion.
- shiranaihito 18y agoTrue, convoluted text is much better than the outright hostility present on Reddit. I thought people used "tl;dr" mostly because dismissing things is so much fun, not because they'd be willing to read a shortened version.
- michaelkeenan 18y ago> I thought people used "tl;dr" mostly because dismissing things is so much fun, not because they'd be willing to read a shortened version. You might well be right! But I like to give the benefit of the doubt.