Ancestors

Toot

Written by cynicalsecurity :cm_2: on 2025-01-14 at 08:17

I am reading David N. Schwartz, "The last man who knew everything" (on Enrico Fermi) and I am starting to suspect that what I thought was an exception is now the rule in non-fiction books.

Why on Earth is no sentence ever longer than ten words? All the recent non-fiction books I have read in the past year have this annoying hyper-simple English structure which drives me absolutely mad. Ironically, the quotes of other physicists in the Schwartz book are far more elaborate even though they are from mostly immigrant scientists: Hans Bethe writes better English than Schwartz, how sad.

I should qualify that: books by US authors have this.

I read both P. Caddick-Adams, "Monte Cassino: Ten armies in Hell" and S. Plohky, "Nuclear Folly: A New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis", neither of them suffer from the short, simple sentences disease.

:flan_sad:​

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Descendants

Written by Siguza on 2025-01-14 at 09:49

@cynicalsecurity reminds me of what Dan Olsen had to say about AVGN's book (YT vid "I Don't Know James Rolfe")...

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Written by cynicalsecurity :cm_2: on 2025-01-14 at 09:55

@siguza no idea of who/what AVGN is :)

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Written by Siguza on 2025-01-14 at 10:45

@cynicalsecurity you could google it if you wanted to find out, but lowkey Dan Olsen's video essay on it is better than the thing itself...

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Written by Michael Lucas :flan_set_fire: on 2025-01-14 at 13:06

@cynicalsecurity

Because publishers are now hiring recent English BA grads as full-on editors. Editorial experience has been abandoned. They are forcing their writers to write in a way that gets As in school papers.

And universities teach good writing through criticism, which is exactly backwards. It's like hijacking a Jimmy Dean truck so you can build yourself a pig.

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Written by cynicalsecurity :cm_2: on 2025-01-14 at 13:26

@mwl explains it rather well… It is so terribly frustrating if you have read anything more sophisticated than the Hardy Boys.

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Written by Michael Lucas :flan_set_fire: on 2025-01-14 at 13:27

@cynicalsecurity

there are reasons I'm 99% self-pub these days. :flan_piteous:

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