5 ms·

It's moderately dense literature, as muddy and gloomy as the portrayal of london, but I would expect the majority of people to be able to read this?

falcor84 1y ago
I for one absolutely agree that reading this : reading books intended for transmitting information = swimming through molasses : swimming through water
- KPGv2 1y ago
  It's physically impossible to swim through molasses. The analogy is either a failure or an insult.
  - AlexandrB 1y ago
    Is it? Syrup is swimmable: https://mythresults.com/swimming-in-syrup https://mythresults.com/swimming-in-syrup
    - haiku2077 1y ago
      Molasses is a thicker concentrate, and is infamously deadly when it floods. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - falcor84 1y ago
        Everything is deadly when it floods, with water floods being responsible for about half of all deaths from global natural disasters [0]. The Wikipedia article you linked to describes the event but says nothing about swimming through it. There's a Scientific American article that analyzed this based on the Reynolds number [1] and arrived at a conclusion that you can't swim through molasses via regular symmetric motions and would need something different, which sounds quite appropriate for the analogy. [0] https://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj.p2101 https://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj.p2101 [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/molasses-flood-physics-science/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/molasses-flood-ph...
jcranmer 1y ago
I suspect a majority of the population has no idea what "Michaelmas term" is. And there's some other phrases in there that require some familiarity with things commonplace in the 19th century that aren't so in the 21st century.
- 0xffff2 1y ago
  Count me among those who have no idea when Michaelmas is, but does it really matter? The next sentence tells you it is sometime around November. The whole passage is laden with overlapping context clues.
  - jcranmer 1y ago
    Per Wikipedia, Michaelmas term tends to around in mid-December, not in mid-November.
    - 0xffff2 1y ago
      Well then I guess it was an unseasonably warm December that year? Or perhaps the dates have changed? Regardless, I'm not at all convinced that it makes a significant difference to the story.
  - hluska 1y ago
    It’s a helpful detail that Dickens wrote for his Victorian readers. Michaelmas term refers to both the first academic term of the school year and the start of the legal year in the English courts system. Bleak House is about a court case that has gone on so long that nobody knows what it’s about. The case is about an inheritance and has dragged on for so long that the estate itself has been totally wiped out by legal fees. It has ruined lives and continues to ruin them but there is no end in sight even though there’s nothing left but fighting to fight over. It’s an inherited lawsuit and an inherited feud. Dickens had a lot of issues with the legal system at the time and it was a protest work.
    - everybodyknows 1y ago
KPGv2 1y ago
As would I. It actually feels very "chat-ish." Two-word thoughts as sentences, etc. Like how I text. To my wife. Whenever we're on our computers in different locations. No need to edit. She gets it. So do you.
mschild 1y ago
Anecdata: I found most people don't have an issue with the vocabulary itself but rather their attention spans. From what I've experienced from family members and friends, the younger ones seem to get exasperated by any longer amount of text that isn't in very simple English language. A friend told me his daughter was one of the few that could actually sit through a whole reading session in her 2nd grade class. And these are mostly pick and choose books so not really forced literature they don't enjoy.
Teever 1y ago
I think it's very reasonable to expect that a majority (if not all) of university students to be able to read this but certainly not the general public. You have unrealistic expectations of the average person's ability to read complex literature and the vocabulary necessary to parse this piece of text.
jerf 1y ago
The study itself [1] contains transcript fragments of students talking through what they think the passage means. In fact I feel I should remind you before you start reading it, even though the study also starts with this, that the subject of this study is not the population at large but specifically English majors in college. Not the most elite colleges, but still, I expect better. In the normative sense of "expect", not the descriptive sense... I'm well aware my expectations grossly exceed the reality, but I'm not moving them. [1]: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/922346 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/922346
- andoando 1y ago
  I guess I would not have done much better. >Original Text: Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. >Facilitator: >O.K. >Subject: >There’s just fog everywhere. What deep insight is there to say about this sentence and this sentence alone? Reading the paper it seems like they want you to comment on how the fog is not just literal fog but a metaphor for the dirt and confusion in the city, but reading it sentence to sentence like this, what much is there to say about it?
  - lelandfe 1y ago
    Without reading the paper… There seems to be fog everywhere - but it’s the beautiful and natural fog of London intermingling with the stinking haze of pollution. The use of “great” is interesting because it seems like the city was about to be presented as “bad.” But there’s more to it.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - photonthug 1y ago
    First layer: Literally yes, there's fog everywhere. It gets around. Second layer: Interesting contrast of something clean and natural meeting something industrial and dirty. Voices, who is speaking, where from, and with what perspective? Themes of liminality / phase-change / obscured visibility / motion. Those tiers of shipping mean that some other stuff besides fog gets around. Third layer: Generalizing a bit, if natural things enter into a blackened, dirty hub of artificial industrial and commercial activity, they can become unclean. Questions: Is man not also natural thing? Foreshadowing: What happens to the heart and soul of a man in an overcrowded, dirty, artificial setting? Can what was once clean and then dirty be made clean again? What does all the motion actually move towards? Where will the shipping go, and will the fog see the meadow again, and will man be able find his heart?

falcor84 1y ago

I for one absolutely agree that reading this : reading books intended for transmitting information = swimming through molasses : swimming through water

KPGv2 1y ago
It's physically impossible to swim through molasses. The analogy is either a failure or an insult.
- AlexandrB 1y ago
  Is it? Syrup is swimmable: https://mythresults.com/swimming-in-syrup https://mythresults.com/swimming-in-syrup
  - haiku2077 1y ago
    Molasses is a thicker concentrate, and is infamously deadly when it floods. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - falcor84 1y ago
      Everything is deadly when it floods, with water floods being responsible for about half of all deaths from global natural disasters [0]. The Wikipedia article you linked to describes the event but says nothing about swimming through it. There's a Scientific American article that analyzed this based on the Reynolds number [1] and arrived at a conclusion that you can't swim through molasses via regular symmetric motions and would need something different, which sounds quite appropriate for the analogy. [0] https://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj.p2101 https://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj.p2101 [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/molasses-flood-physics-science/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/molasses-flood-ph...

jcranmer 1y ago

I suspect a majority of the population has no idea what "Michaelmas term" is. And there's some other phrases in there that require some familiarity with things commonplace in the 19th century that aren't so in the 21st century.

0xffff2 1y ago
Count me among those who have no idea when Michaelmas is, but does it really matter? The next sentence tells you it is sometime around November. The whole passage is laden with overlapping context clues.
- jcranmer 1y ago
  Per Wikipedia, Michaelmas term tends to around in mid-December, not in mid-November.
  - 0xffff2 1y ago
    Well then I guess it was an unseasonably warm December that year? Or perhaps the dates have changed? Regardless, I'm not at all convinced that it makes a significant difference to the story.
- hluska 1y ago
  It’s a helpful detail that Dickens wrote for his Victorian readers. Michaelmas term refers to both the first academic term of the school year and the start of the legal year in the English courts system. Bleak House is about a court case that has gone on so long that nobody knows what it’s about. The case is about an inheritance and has dragged on for so long that the estate itself has been totally wiped out by legal fees. It has ruined lives and continues to ruin them but there is no end in sight even though there’s nothing left but fighting to fight over. It’s an inherited lawsuit and an inherited feud. Dickens had a lot of issues with the legal system at the time and it was a protest work.
  - everybodyknows 1y ago

KPGv2 1y ago

As would I. It actually feels very "chat-ish." Two-word thoughts as sentences, etc. Like how I text. To my wife. Whenever we're on our computers in different locations. No need to edit. She gets it. So do you.

mschild 1y ago

Anecdata: I found most people don't have an issue with the vocabulary itself but rather their attention spans. From what I've experienced from family members and friends, the younger ones seem to get exasperated by any longer amount of text that isn't in very simple English language. A friend told me his daughter was one of the few that could actually sit through a whole reading session in her 2nd grade class. And these are mostly pick and choose books so not really forced literature they don't enjoy.

Teever 1y ago

I think it's very reasonable to expect that a majority (if not all) of university students to be able to read this but certainly not the general public. You have unrealistic expectations of the average person's ability to read complex literature and the vocabulary necessary to parse this piece of text.

jerf 1y ago

The study itself [1] contains transcript fragments of students talking through what they think the passage means. In fact I feel I should remind you before you start reading it, even though the study also starts with this, that the subject of this study is not the population at large but specifically English majors in college. Not the most elite colleges, but still, I expect better. In the normative sense of "expect", not the descriptive sense... I'm well aware my expectations grossly exceed the reality, but I'm not moving them. [1]: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/922346 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/922346

andoando 1y ago
I guess I would not have done much better. >Original Text: Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. >Facilitator: >O.K. >Subject: >There’s just fog everywhere. What deep insight is there to say about this sentence and this sentence alone? Reading the paper it seems like they want you to comment on how the fog is not just literal fog but a metaphor for the dirt and confusion in the city, but reading it sentence to sentence like this, what much is there to say about it?
- lelandfe 1y ago
  Without reading the paper… There seems to be fog everywhere - but it’s the beautiful and natural fog of London intermingling with the stinking haze of pollution. The use of “great” is interesting because it seems like the city was about to be presented as “bad.” But there’s more to it.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- photonthug 1y ago
  First layer: Literally yes, there's fog everywhere. It gets around. Second layer: Interesting contrast of something clean and natural meeting something industrial and dirty. Voices, who is speaking, where from, and with what perspective? Themes of liminality / phase-change / obscured visibility / motion. Those tiers of shipping mean that some other stuff besides fog gets around. Third layer: Generalizing a bit, if natural things enter into a blackened, dirty hub of artificial industrial and commercial activity, they can become unclean. Questions: Is man not also natural thing? Foreshadowing: What happens to the heart and soul of a man in an overcrowded, dirty, artificial setting? Can what was once clean and then dirty be made clean again? What does all the motion actually move towards? Where will the shipping go, and will the fog see the meadow again, and will man be able find his heart?