Should We Speak In Small Words?

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AnOminous

AnOminous

Any road will take you there.
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Dec 28, 2014
Give the idea some thought, as we are here in the thunks forum of genius retards.

But here. <-- not a sentence

But here. Imagine a world where you could express your opinion with no penalty if people don't like whatever bullshit you sperged about. Except in the weird world where I grew up, if this happened, you'd just be the funny guy with a spergy obsession, and people might rib on you a bit now and again, but you'd still be part of the team.

I miss the meritocracy of that. Does this idiot's computer come up when he pushes the button? Great. He's an idiot, the OS is shit, the computer itself is horrible, but whatever, gimme my money.
 
There's being brief and concise and then there's being like twitter. Use the amount of words necessary to properly convey your point. Sometimes less is more, but usually more is more.
 
Orwell covered something close to this in his essay Politics and the English Language (which should be required reading IMO), and I tend to agree with him. It's not necessarily the length of the words that matter, but the clarity of the expression of the ideas that matter. More or bigger words is not better if the result is a stew that can't be easily understood.

Even worse than the length of words used in modern discourse is the trend of twisting words to mean what you say they mean or just making words and terms up entirely to fit what you want. We otherize people; persons and concepts are centered; and don't even get me started on things like harm, trauma and violence, which are rapidly approaching the point of being stripped of all definable meaning, especially in sociopolitical talk. Discussing the overuse of language like this, Orwell says:

"The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink."

And later on:

"1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.*
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous."**

*Everyone should recognize this one as being an absolute plague in modern writing, especially journalism. The classic bureaucratic weasel word cutouts-- 'Mistakes were made', 'we regret any error', etcetera etcetera.

**inb4 'go neck yourself, glownigger'
 
Helium Bubble said:
Orwell covered something close to this in his essay Politics and the English Language (which should be required reading IMO),
Click to expand...
He's been discredited, repeatedly, by his own writing.
Orwell had talent, but I cannot respect him.

Hemingway had better prose.
 
I wish we could still speak in one syllable words, the English language was great for that about 1000 years ago.
 
I aim to reservedly incorporate preposterously prolonged language in order to manufacture phrases that result in simpleminded common people to be discombobulated
 
I'm far too much of a wordy faggot to handle that.
 
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