Duxwing
I've Overcome Existential Despair
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- Sep 9, 2012
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Awkward writing, poor grammar, and misspellings greatly irk me; consequently, I love correcting them--albeit, the frequency of such errors on featured Wikipedia articles dishearten me. Below are several errors that I frequently encounter--stated in general case and have a correction beside them--followed by my understanding of their formation.
--"It is [x] that [y] is [z]" where [x] and [z] are adjectives, and [y] is a noun should be "[Y] is (article where necessary) [z]"; if the adjective is important, then [x-ly] is [z]," where [x-ly] is the adverb form of [x]. Entirely rewrite the sentence whenever necessary adverbs are unavailable.
--"[P] that [x]" where [P] is word cruft--e.g., "Note that" or "In fact"--should be "[X]". If the word cruft informally creates contrast or expounds, then formally integrate [X] into the previous thought with dashes, commas, or words like "however," "therefore," or even humble "because".
--Passive voice, especially when combined with "It is" or "there is," creates an atmosphere of enjoyable formality and gravity in the mind of the author; conversely, it creates an atmosphere of insufferable bombast in the mind of the reader. Replace it with active voice.
--"[words amounting to "in essence"] [x]" should be put at the beginning of the rambling, disorganized shambles of writing and reasoning that almost invariably precedes it with [words amounting to "in essence"] removed, and said shambles should be organized around [x] so that the awkward, desperate leap to save the reader's foggy understanding needn't be made.
I could continue showing you, in the words of Twain, the "literary offences" of Wikipedia, but the errors themselves are clerical mistakes; their creation far more greatly interests me.
First drafts are performances of impromptu public speaking: their writers record thoughts immediately after thinking them and are usually unaware of their writings' conclusions--instead being affected by fleeting emotions. This immediate contact between the mind and the page allows us to observe the mind of the author. For examples, consider my three errors: the first may result from the author thinking of the adjective before the noun, the second, the logic of the thought before its form--and therefore requiring a moment to think while 'keeping up the pace' of words, as one must whilst speaking before an audience--and the third from not having thought through his or her point before writing it down.
Furthermore, we can discover the emotion of the author by analyzing his or her errors. Making a decisive, well-put statement or argument requires the energy to edit and the courage to either stake one's pride and reputation on one's reasoning, admit that one lacks knowledge in the field at hand or mastery of reason or language, or review (and frightfully, therefore potentially change) one's initial, sometimes emotionally-weighted conclusion to a possibly uncomfortable one. The author, of course, could be oneself: writing an emotionally charged paragraph, cooling off, and then analyzing the paragraph can help us better understand ourselves.
Yet the authors' emotions are not purely caused by their thoughts: they might feel a need to create a certain tone in his or her work, which might be jovial, formal, grave, joking, unifiying, or simply expressive, and they create logically equivalent (or worse) sentences to achieve it: elementary school books rarely use "one" as a pronoun, and presidential candidates often refer to "The United States" as "America" outside the context of foreign policy or the structure of government. I leave deriving the tones in question as an exercise for the reader.
Those engaged in informal communication value the immediacy of contact provided by such raw writing and often deride formal writing as stuffy or arrogant, perhaps because they don't know how else to express their desire for intimacy.
What have you learned from encountering and correcting these errors? What have you thought and felt?
-Duxwing
--"It is [x] that [y] is [z]" where [x] and [z] are adjectives, and [y] is a noun should be "[Y] is (article where necessary) [z]"; if the adjective is important, then [x-ly] is [z]," where [x-ly] is the adverb form of [x]. Entirely rewrite the sentence whenever necessary adverbs are unavailable.
--"[P] that [x]" where [P] is word cruft--e.g., "Note that" or "In fact"--should be "[X]". If the word cruft informally creates contrast or expounds, then formally integrate [X] into the previous thought with dashes, commas, or words like "however," "therefore," or even humble "because".
--Passive voice, especially when combined with "It is" or "there is," creates an atmosphere of enjoyable formality and gravity in the mind of the author; conversely, it creates an atmosphere of insufferable bombast in the mind of the reader. Replace it with active voice.
--"[words amounting to "in essence"] [x]" should be put at the beginning of the rambling, disorganized shambles of writing and reasoning that almost invariably precedes it with [words amounting to "in essence"] removed, and said shambles should be organized around [x] so that the awkward, desperate leap to save the reader's foggy understanding needn't be made.
I could continue showing you, in the words of Twain, the "literary offences" of Wikipedia, but the errors themselves are clerical mistakes; their creation far more greatly interests me.
First drafts are performances of impromptu public speaking: their writers record thoughts immediately after thinking them and are usually unaware of their writings' conclusions--instead being affected by fleeting emotions. This immediate contact between the mind and the page allows us to observe the mind of the author. For examples, consider my three errors: the first may result from the author thinking of the adjective before the noun, the second, the logic of the thought before its form--and therefore requiring a moment to think while 'keeping up the pace' of words, as one must whilst speaking before an audience--and the third from not having thought through his or her point before writing it down.
Furthermore, we can discover the emotion of the author by analyzing his or her errors. Making a decisive, well-put statement or argument requires the energy to edit and the courage to either stake one's pride and reputation on one's reasoning, admit that one lacks knowledge in the field at hand or mastery of reason or language, or review (and frightfully, therefore potentially change) one's initial, sometimes emotionally-weighted conclusion to a possibly uncomfortable one. The author, of course, could be oneself: writing an emotionally charged paragraph, cooling off, and then analyzing the paragraph can help us better understand ourselves.
Yet the authors' emotions are not purely caused by their thoughts: they might feel a need to create a certain tone in his or her work, which might be jovial, formal, grave, joking, unifiying, or simply expressive, and they create logically equivalent (or worse) sentences to achieve it: elementary school books rarely use "one" as a pronoun, and presidential candidates often refer to "The United States" as "America" outside the context of foreign policy or the structure of government. I leave deriving the tones in question as an exercise for the reader.
Those engaged in informal communication value the immediacy of contact provided by such raw writing and often deride formal writing as stuffy or arrogant, perhaps because they don't know how else to express their desire for intimacy.
What have you learned from encountering and correcting these errors? What have you thought and felt?
-Duxwing
Individual styles--for example, Architect's three line format--are not only the result of genuine thought, but poor education: e.g., never saying "me" for fear of sounding like a caveman by incorrectly putting it where it shouldn't be and instead saying "myself" (A REFLEXIVE PRONOUN!) or I.
