free thoughtpolice wrote:Steersman; Has anyone told you that your writing is poorly focused and unnecessarily long winded and verbose? That you come across as pretentious and not as clever as you think you are? That you must have skipped English class the day they were teaching how to edit?
If so do you blame the reader and not your crappy writing?
If you are able to answer these questions in under a thousand words I may even read your response.
Well – Michael K Gray [MKG]
did describe my writing as “impenetrable and unnecessarily prolix
sludge†so I’m not totally unaware that at least some are less than impressed with my dulcet, lyrical, cogent, and deathless prose.
However, one might argue that one man’s verbosity is another’s terse-to-the-point-of-obscurity. Seems to me that we are all, more or less, in possession of varying degrees of knowledge and information in various fields which we seek to impart, one way or another and in varying degrees and to varying extents, to anything but a homogenous audience. Which then makes it a practical dead-certainty that some descriptions are going to be too complex or verbose for the background of some and too simple or terse for those of others. Hence the necessity, I think, to provide links to supporting or elaborating evidence.
But, for instance, as BannedAid cogently – and rather kindly – put it [
# 558], “Sometimes it's tough to express even really simple ideas (which Steersman's point wasn't) clearlyâ€. More particularly, the “idea†under discussion was the impact of gender feminism and some of the philosophical “principles†which undergird it, as well as its ramifications and consequences – hardly a simple idea, at least I don’t find it so nor, apparently, did BannedAid. And while my synopsis of that idea may not have been as clear and as well-phrased as I would, in retrospect, have liked, that BannedAid obviously “got†the gist of it tends to discredit the charges of Ionesagi or MKG that my phrasing was particularly “impenetrable†or verbose or overly “gussied up†– particularly since I provided a link to Pinker’s chapter on the topic as a guide for the perplexed, but which apparently neither of them referred to.
As for
pretentiousâ€, I hardly think I’m “claiming or demanding a position of distinction or meritâ€, although I suppose I might plead “guilty†to “making or marked by extravagant outward show†– at least to some extent. I do have a tendency to embellish, to “gussy†things up a bit – mea culpa, although my impression is that generally the additions are relevant to the point I’m trying to make. But I suppose I might make an effort in the future to see whether that is really the case.
But “not as clever as you think you areâ€? Since you can’t really know precisely what I think about my degree of cleverness – good in some areas, execrable in others which is the source of some frustration if not despair – I wonder what evidence you have to justify that conclusion. Always – or almost always – willing to stand corrected and see the “errors of my waysâ€. But, as suggested earlier, because of the nature of the medium and audience, I pretty well have to “call them as I see them†– as do we all, I think – and provide supporting information where available, and stand ready to be corrected or at least engage in discussion on the point – I’m hardly making any ex cathedra statements. However, if that still looks like I’m thinking “I’m more clever than I really am†then I might point out that looks can be deceiving, and constitute a largely subjective judgement.
As for my editing skills, that reminds me of an anecdote from my
Writing: Craft and Art manual – something I didn’t get as far into as I would have liked. However, the anecdote was of an interview of Ernest Hemingway who had had to rewrite his
Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times. And on being asked, relative to that, “Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?â€, Hemingway replied, “Getting the words rightâ€. While very few of us, particularly me, are of that caliber or have the luxury of that time, I think it highlights the fact that editing can be a time consuming chore – and that the nature of the beast necessitates saying “good enough†at some point. Or, as someone else observed, “if I had had more time, I would have made a shorter and tighter missiveâ€.
If so do you blame the reader and not your crappy writing?
Depends on the reader and the writing in question – I tend to be leery of categorical statements of virtually any kind. If nobody “gets it†then probably “Casey has struck outâ€; if somebody does then it means my writing wasn’t totally beyond the pale and that some “fault†resides with the other readers, even if I might have phrased things better to reach more of them.
If you are able to answer these questions in under a thousand words I may even read your response.
764, more or less ….
