Many years ago I explained that I, like Sandy, write explicitly for money, as much as possible, and the people who pay me expect that I will do whatever text can do to get readers to obey those who pay for the text. One method for this is to write clearly in the most authoritarian language of the day, the most grammatically correct, the most literate, the most accepted as being the proper way to write in an unmarked, unidiosyncratic way, the most likely to have been written by someone who embraced without shame the way the masters of writing write, the way the writing manuals recommend, and recommend as nauseum, purest banal. And to never write the way poets do, oddballs do, gibbering idiots do, for that will allegedly diminish the value of your writing the way the payers want you to write, that is to write as if their and your shit don't smell, your and their skin is hued the preferred color, our accent the dominant unaccent of the day, you and they don't copulate the wrong kind of people, you and they have no faults to hide, you and they have no guts to face up to your inability to break away from hiding behind conformity not of your making. Shit, I understand Sandy all too well. And totally admire his talent to blow prefabricated sunshine where it's needed. Even so I won't do what the grammatically correct crowd never cease trying to impose here. Fuck them as one of them has said often here when he's tired of explaining why he won't do what some assholes keep demanding. Or to say it my way, correct writing, clear writing, comprehensively coherent writing, is just another way to tyrannize, bully, hector and obscure jive-ass agendas, though those who do it don't always own up to , or not admit the arousal it gives them to be part of a me-too maleducated mob. This is a friendly joke, as ever, in respect for the asshole language rules-makers here. (Spit)
John wrote:
Many years ago I explained that I, like Sandy, write explicitly for money, as much as possible, and the people who pay me expect that I will do whatever text can do to get readers to obey those who pay for the text.
Well luckily, unlike John, I've never had to whore myself when I wrote. I wrote what I thought and they published it. I can see why someone who allowed himself to do that might wish to reassert his manhood by battling his own inner policeman. If that works for John, so be it. I shall continue to write clearly so that my ideas will be communicated. That does not necessarily mean that it will be grammatically correct, boring or uninspired--just meaningful.
And to never write the way poets do, oddballs do, gibbering idiots do, for that will allegedly diminish the value of your writing the way the payers want you to write, that is to write as if their and your shit don't smell, your and their skin is hued the preferred color, our accent the dominant unaccent of the day, you and they don't copulate the wrong kind of people, you and they have no faults to hide, you and they have no guts to face up to your inability to break away from hiding behind conformity not of your making.
Sounds like a personal problem to me, John. I never had to do any of that (nor would I). Why did you?
Shit, I understand Sandy all too well. And totally admire his talent to blow prefabricated sunshine where it's needed.
John, have you actually read any of my stuff? Please point to some of my "prefabricated sunshine." If I really do it, I should know it so I can capitalize on it. :-D
Even so I won't do what the grammatically correct crowd never cease trying to impose here.
John, you know, I know and most folks on this list know, I never argued for grammatical correctness. I DO favor comprehensibility. Don't you think it's a cheap shot to trivializes real concerns about communication by mischaracterizing critics as grammar cops?
Or to say it my way, correct writing, clear writing, comprehensively coherent writing, is just another way to tyrannize, bully, hector...
"War is peace" How Orwellian...
This is a friendly joke, as ever, in respect for the asshole language rules-makers here. (Spit)
You know, John, there aren't any rules-makers on Cypherpunks. You can write all the gobbledygook you want; no one will stop you. By the same token, though, anyone here is free to point out that the emperor has no clothes. S a n d y
participants (2)
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John Young -
Sandy Sandfort