Wikipediocracy

Hersch wrote:The Hannah Anderson Kidnapping. A detailed analysis by Cornpone T. McGillicutty. Discuss.

E. B. White wrote: “9. Do not affect a breezy manner.

The volume of writing is enormous, these days, and much of it has a sort of windiness about it, almost as though the author were in a state of euphoria. “Spontaneous me,” sang Whitman, and, in his innocence, let loose the hordes of uninspired scribblers who would one day confuse spontaneity with genius.

The breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that comes to mind is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day. Open any alumni magazine, turn to the class notes, and you are quite likely to encounter old Spontaneous Me at work–an aging collegian who writes something like this:

‘Well, guys, here I am again dishing the dirt about your disorderly classmates, after pa$$ing a weekend ing the Big Apple trying to catch the Columbia hoops tilt and then a cab-ride from hell through the West Side casbah. And speaking of news, howzabout tossing a few primo items this way?’

This is an extreme example, but the same wind blows, at lesser velocities, across vast expanses of journalistic prose. The author in this case has managed in two sentences to commit most of the unpardonable sins: he obviously has nothing to say, he is showing off and directing the attention of the reader to himself, he is using slang with neither provocation nor ingenuity, he adopts a patronizing air by throwing in the word primo, he is humorless (though full of fun), dull, and empty. He has not done his work. Compare his opening remarks with the following–a plunge directly into the news:

‘Clyde Crawford, who stroked the varsity shell in 1958, is swinging an oar again after a lapse of forty years. Clyde resigned last spring as executive sales manager of the Indiana Flotex Company and is now a gondolier in Venice.’

This, although conventional, is compact, informative, unpretentious. The writer has dug up an item of news and presented it in a straightforward manner. What the first writer tried to accomplish by cutting rhetorical capers and by breeziness, the second writer managed to achieve by good reporting, by keeping a tight rein on his material, and by staying out of the act.”

Zoloft wrote:I always have a copy of Strunk and White near me. It is also fun to completely ignore its teachings when you wish to annoy.

Strunk wrote: Omit needless words.

Zoloft wrote:

Strunk wrote: Omit needless words.

Notvelty wrote:

Zoloft wrote:I always have a copy of Strunk and White near me. It is also fun to completely ignore its teachings when you wish to annoy.

Strunk and White is very good to absolutely necessary advice for communicating with a certain set of people; for others, it ranges from adequate to appalling. It would be wrong to say that they completely ignore the primacy of the audience, since the audience for which they write was essentially the only audience for written work in the era in which they wrote.

Heck, they don't even follow their own advice on matters that are "given".

For example:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that he make every word tell.

—"Elementary Principles of Composition", The Elements of Style


Sixty-five f'ing words and far too many syllables to say what could have been covered with an abridgement of the first sentence and the last 4 words.

Bielle wrote:

Notvelty wrote:

Zoloft wrote:I always have a copy of Strunk and White near me. It is also fun to completely ignore its teachings when you wish to annoy.

Strunk and White is very good to absolutely necessary advice for communicating with a certain set of people; for others, it ranges from adequate to appalling. It would be wrong to say that they completely ignore the primacy of the audience, since the audience for which they write was essentially the only audience for written work in the era in which they wrote.

Heck, they don't even follow their own advice on matters that are "given".

For example:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that he make every word tell.

—"Elementary Principles of Composition", The Elements of Style


Sixty-five f'ing words and far too many syllables to say what could have been covered with an abridgement of the first sentence and the last 4 words.

I am not quite sure how the first sentence ("Vigorous writing is concise.") could be abridged and still mean something.

lonza leggiera wrote:

Bielle wrote:

Notvelty wrote:

Zoloft wrote:I always have a copy of Strunk and White near me. It is also fun to completely ignore its teachings when you wish to annoy.

Strunk and White is very good to absolutely necessary advice for communicating with a certain set of people; for others, it ranges from adequate to appalling. It would be wrong to say that they completely ignore the primacy of the audience, since the audience for which they write was essentially the only audience for written work in the era in which they wrote.

Heck, they don't even follow their own advice on matters that are "given".

For example:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that he make every word tell.

—"Elementary Principles of Composition", The Elements of Style


Sixty-five f'ing words and far too many syllables to say what could have been covered with an abridgement of the first sentence and the last 4 words.

I am not quite sure how the first sentence ("Vigorous writing is concise.") could be abridged and still mean something.

I took the abridgement Notvelty had in mind to be something like "Vigorous writing makes every word tell"—i.e. an abridgement of the first sentence and the last four words, as he stated.

Bielle wrote:

lonza leggiera wrote:

Bielle wrote:

Notvelty wrote:

Zoloft wrote:I always have a copy of Strunk and White near me. It is also fun to completely ignore its teachings when you wish to annoy.

Strunk and White is very good to absolutely necessary advice for communicating with a certain set of people; for others, it ranges from adequate to appalling. It would be wrong to say that they completely ignore the primacy of the audience, since the audience for which they write was essentially the only audience for written work in the era in which they wrote.

Heck, they don't even follow their own advice on matters that are "given".

For example:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that he make every word tell.

—"Elementary Principles of Composition", The Elements of Style


Sixty-five f'ing words and far too many syllables to say what could have been covered with an abridgement of the first sentence and the last 4 words.

I am not quite sure how the first sentence ("Vigorous writing is concise.") could be abridged and still mean something.

I took the abridgement Notvelty had in mind to be something like "Vigorous writing makes every word tell"—i.e. an abridgement of the first sentence and the last four words, as he stated.

You may well be right: "Vigorous writing is concise and makes every word tell."

thekohser wrote:"Write concisely."

thekohser wrote:"Write concisely."

Poetlister wrote:

thekohser wrote:"Write concisely."

"Be terse." - shorter words!

Zoloft wrote:"Cut."
The above was the only critique on a story I handed in for a creative writing class.

Zoloft wrote:

Poetlister wrote:

thekohser wrote:"Write concisely."

"Be terse." - shorter words!

"Cut."

Jim wrote:

Zoloft wrote:"Cut."
The above was the only critique on a story I handed in for a creative writing class.

I remember when I was a teenager reading an early anthology of Asimov work from the 40s/50s. "The Early Asimov", I guess.

In the book, Asimov intersperses the actual stories with commentary on the writing process, discussions with his publisher, Campbell, the wait to see if his story was accepted, how many cents a word he'd get, and how it would be received - and what it was like to be a "penniless" author.

At one point he has a story accepted and published in a magazine and goes away on holiday.

He's desperately worried about reception, and magazine sales, but isolated. (no email, twitting, this is the old days)

So he sends a telegram (paid by the character, remember) consisting of "?",
and receives the reply "!"

Even if it wasn't true I liked the anecdote, and it has stuck with me.

Newyorkbrad wrote:

Jim wrote:

Zoloft wrote:"Cut."
The above was the only critique on a story I handed in for a creative writing class.

I remember when I was a teenager reading an early anthology of Asimov work from the 40s/50s. "The Early Asimov", I guess.

In the book, Asimov intersperses the actual stories with commentary on the writing process, discussions with his publisher, Campbell, the wait to see if his story was accepted, how many cents a word he'd get, and how it would be received - and what it was like to be a "penniless" author.

At one point he has a story accepted and published in a magazine and goes away on holiday.

He's desperately worried about reception, and magazine sales, but isolated. (no email, twitting, this is the old days)

So he sends a telegram (paid by the character, remember) consisting of "?",
and receives the reply "!"

Even if it wasn't true I liked the anecdote, and it has stuck with me.

The Early Asimov is superb, but the anecdote (apparently true) involved Victor Hugo and Les Miserables.

According to some accounts, the shortest correspondence in history is said to have been between Hugo and his publisher Hurst and Blackett in 1862. Hugo was on vacation when Les Misérables was published. He queried the reaction to the work by sending a single-character telegram to his publisher, asking "?". The publisher replied with a single "!" to indicate its success. The Quote Investigator website investigated the claim and concluded that it is probably fictional.

Newyorkbrad wrote:The Early Asimov is superb, but the anecdote (apparently true) involved Victor Hugo and Les Miserables.

thekohser wrote:Brad's a big fan of Javert... a fanatic cop in pursuit of punishing an ex-convict who served his time and is merely trying to live an honest life after a couple of post-prison mistakes. Eventually, Javert recognizes that the lawful approach is also the immoral one, as it is immoral to command that a decision is always final and is not subject to reconsideration or appeal.

Newyorkbrad wrote:

thekohser wrote:Brad's a big fan of Javert... a fanatic cop in pursuit of punishing an ex-convict who served his time and is merely trying to live an honest life after a couple of post-prison mistakes. Eventually, Javert recognizes that the lawful approach is also the immoral one, as it is immoral to command that a decision is always final and is not subject to reconsideration or appeal.

If you think that accurately describes of my philosophy on Wikipedia (or in life), you are as wrong as it is possible to be. If anything, I've been criticized on-wiki for perceived excessive leniency toward disruptive editors more than anything else. I've certainly supported any number of second, third, fourth, and nth chances.

"The decision is final and is not subject to reconsideration or appeal."

Newyorkbrad wrote:If you think that accurately describes of my philosophy on Wikipedia (or in life), you are as wrong as it is possible to be. If anything, I've been criticized on-wiki for perceived excessive leniency toward disruptive editors more than anything else. I've certainly supported any number of second, third, fourth, and nth chances.

Newyorkbrad wrote: [....] I've certainly supported any number of second, third, fourth, and nth chances.