I love to read The Economist just for its writing. I wish I could write like that – though I do think they write at a university level even when that is not necessary.
To start to understand how they write, I will take a paragraph of theirs and write it the way I would and then compare.
This one is from “A troubling rise in xenophobic vitriol” (September 27th 2014). I chose it because it is self-contained, not too long and is interesting in its own right:
“Japan has about 500,000 non-naturalised Koreans, some of whom have come in the past couple of decades but many of whose families were part of a diaspora that arrived during Japan’s imperial era in the first half of the 20th century. They have long been targets of hostility. After the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923, Tokyo residents launched a pogrom against ethnic Koreans, claiming that they had poisoned the water supply.”
How I would write that:
“Japan has about 500,000 Koreans who are not citizens. Some have come since 1950, but many Korean families came in the early 1900s, back when Japan ruled Korea. People in Japan have long hated them, killing hundreds if not thousands of them in Tokyo in 1923 after the Great Kanto Earthquake. They said the Koreans had poisoned the water.”
Note that “ruled Korea” and “killing hundreds if not thousands” does not necessarily follow from what The Economist stated, but in this case it is what lies behind the words “imperial” and “pogrom”.
Fat content: When I tried this exercise with Time magazine, I could cut up to 75%. With Chomsky, it was 32%. Here I was able to cut 18%. By that measure, The Economist has much less fat. Their writing does in fact seem leaner (though probably not as lean as James Baldwin’s).
Most of their fat comes from a habit of mind, common in written English, where you think in terms of impersonal abstract nouns.
In their paragraph, “diaspora”, “hostility” and “pogrom”, not any actors or actions, take centre stage. The Japanese and Koreans are seen in relation to them. That is why:
- Korean families did not “come” to Japan, but “were part of a diaspora” that did.
- The Japanese did not “hate” Koreans, but Koreans found themselves the targets of “hostility” that did.
- The Japanese did not “kill” Koreans, but “launched a pogrom” that did.
Also, Japan did not “rule” Korea, instead there was just this part of history called “Japan’s imperial era” – another abstraction.
But the main thing that makes their writing university level is not these abstractions but sentence length.
Take a look: most of their paragraph is taken up by just one sentence, the first one, which is 43 words long. It is hardly their longest or most twisted.
This leaves me knowing what is bad about their writing, but not what is good, aside from its leanness.
The next time my mother gushes over one of their obituaries, I should try to rewrite it.
To be continued.
– Abagond, 2015.
See also:
- The Economist
- reading level
- American magazine’s writing – Time magazine and the New Yorker
- American academic prose – where I rewrite Chomsky
- nominalization – overuse of abstract nouns
- style guide – largely based on The Economist’s style guide
- Other rewrites:
- “Take Japan, for instance” – for more on Japanese xenophobia
556
I am not sure I understand
If you think that you can fix some of the problems with their writing, why do you wish you could write like that? So that it can be fixed?
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I think you do a great job maintaining some neutrality in your writings …which juxtapose so well with the more emotional responses in the comments section.
I find that in your blog the post and comments work together with the posts acting as a framework to the responses and the responses giving depth and flavor the the post……
…makes for a consistently enjoyable read…..
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Those articles are written by individuals who wish to talk above the average person (head) knowledge. No way to stop that they paid for that higher eduction and they want you to know it!
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….I swear when I wrote like that a university level my English professors constantly criticized it( probably because I wrote better than they did, or had the potential to, even as a child.)
I wasn’t even using descriptive words that unnecessarily. I used the word “obfuscate” and that was considered “unnecessary” when I promise you it was the perfect usage of that word. My history professor loved the way I wrote. But all my life I’ve never had an English teacher that hasn’t been my enemy because most of them regard themselves as possible writers when most of them know they aren’t that good and they lack the intellect, passions, or practice to be as good as they like to think they are. So anyone showing enthusiasm for literature they’re easily threatened by, and yes most of these people have been white. White people do not like competition on a level playing field from hat I’ve seen. That’s why teachers will bully smart black children.
I don’t think it’s a lack of intelligence, many intelligent people don’t appreciate art, even if or especially if they understand it . Some things just don’t interest everyone but in certain circles if you criticize anything it makes you an outcast. I doubt even purists love to regularly read most great writers or people who write in that style.
For myself, I enjoy good storytellers and good writers. Rarely are both the same person. Stephen King is a good storyteller:he’s interesting. But he’s a terrible writer, to me, because he cannot finish his stories.
I have a soft spot for Joyce and Nabokov. Because to most people their stories are terrible to read. So much unnecessary verbally dense often confusing description.But that’s what I love to read! It’s like a feast of the senses when they describe anything. “He tasted the ripe strawberry of her tongue.” When Nabokov or Joyce describe a kiss they tell you about it, the action of kissing, and they stimulate your senses. And they add allusions, metaphor, similes and the go off on tangents but I that’s what makes them such great writers.
I will say that I don’t like deceptive description but a lot of how people write reflects the way they think. So in many cultures tacit understanding leaks into a lot of what they write, and the economist is a global publication so the journalist clearly had a wider audience in mind. There’s writer and reader bias and even I have that same bias when I read something. I consider omitting or rewording things deceptive, in almost all forms, but other people from another culture might see understating as the same thing as stating something.
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On the other hand:
I also honestly believe most people don’t really read for comprehension. They just skim read to get the surface argument. But….that only really works for certain arguments and subjects.
Economics is a University Level subject. I mean Macro Economics is.
Some arguments/subjects are too complex to be oversimplified to the level most people seem to want them to be nowadays. If a subject doesn’t interest you just don’t comment on the argument. It is okay to admit ignorance and withhold an opinion.
That’s why so many “educated” people express approval of certain writers and styles of writing in public but in private they hold them in disdain and contempt. Many educated people lack intelligence to appreciate writers who make you think about what they write, that’s why certain obscure terminology that makes them have to get out the dictionary or check Google exasperates them really.
Many people enjoy being told what to think. Wasn’t it Einstein who said people enjoy thinking but hate reaching conclusions? Being told what to think, in an overly simplified argument, IS a lot less mentally taxing than looking through that facts and weighing the evidence and reaching your own conclusion is.
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Not to mention how time saving being dictated to is for the most do nothing and yet somehow still too busy for important things, instant gratification, attention deficit, morally bankrupt, generation that ever lived.
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That’s interesting in that this writing sample is all passive voice excepting the sentence about the pogrom? You know what im saying. Not supposed to do that.
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@abagond centre? Really?
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My gut feeling is the use of the passive voice here is a deflective literary device in order to avoid any semblance of ascribing blame wait for it ugh a google moment a very slick example of:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophasis
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@ V8driver
centre? Really?
Abagond uses Oxford spelling, and so does Canada. I just came back from spending three years abroad so I didn’t honestly notice.
I think America is probably the only former British Colony that doesn’t. Because that’s seriously how I’ve seen it spelled all over Europe and Canada.
and
My gut feeling is the use of the passive voice here is a deflective literary device in order to avoid any semblance of ascribing blame wait for it ugh a google moment a very slick example of:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophasis
Good eye! I couldn’t remember what it was called either. Although I am slightly hung over.
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I’ve often said this to others. I totally agree w/Abagond. Filler and fat! Most writers use these to circumvent and/or dilute truth.
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@mariarrginacd lol i swear i didnt read ur comment first
… then i never would have written it
And abagond has been creeping closer to british spelling certainly its a long running rib?
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*written
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Wow! I think most people would prefer your writing style. Simple, clean and clear.
Though out of habit, many including myself would write the way the Economist does.
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“White people do not like competition on a level playing field from hat I’ve seen. That’s why teachers will bully smart black children.”
In my experience, people of all ethnicities will bully you if you excel at anything. White people don’t like competition on a level playing field and especially hate you if you are better than them even with obvious gross inequalities, but people in general tend to be jealous haters.
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Abagond, speaking of “xenophobic vitriol” and “pogrom”, will you write something on the recent events in South Africa?
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Pogrom : The organized destruction of an ethnic group is called a “progrom” This a new word for me. Progrom means to massacre. Insightful post and enlightening as well. Learned something new today.
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I had to make “Google” my friend when looking up the word “pogrom” It’s good to learn something new.
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I have observed that Abagond likes words from the Oxford English dictionary. I felt inspired to subscribe to Oxford Dictionary site for word of the day.
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@Abagond
Recent experience here has shown me that no matter how clear and exact one’s wording is, some people will twist and deliberately misinterpret or dismiss your words when they have an agenda!
With that said, the simpler, clearer and more lucid one’s writing is, the less room there is for obfuscation and misinterpretation – deliberate or otherwise.
Let the fact of your blog’s popularity show YOU that you are WRITING exactly as you’re supposed to write.
(.. except for not having written posts about Neely Fuller Jr., Gary Webb or Edgar Casey)
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The ability to expound on the writing style of Economist magazine is enviable.
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Abagond, the Economist writes in a sterile way, so that they don’t offend their target audience– capitalist liberals and conservatives
These people need to feel good about themselves, to justify their investments and politics, and have their overall view of the world verified — hence the snobbery.
Don’t change a thing, Abagond – Information is more interesting when it’s written with a “real-to-life” tone
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My favorite obsequious word is obviate.
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Gro Jo, I was thinking about that the other day
There is a video showing the South Africans burning Somali immigrant children to death.
I did not watch it though.. I don’t want to see such cruelty and wanton destruction of life (I see enough at work)
but are you really shock? You and I both come from countries that show that there is no “black or brown” utopia just because white people are no longer “in charge”
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the President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, said it best:
“South African’s will kick down a statue of dead white man but won’t even attempt to slap alive one.
Yet they can stone to death a black man simply because he’s a foreigner,”
http://afkinsider.com/94400/xenophobia-why-south-african-attacks-are-only-targeting-african-immigrants/
OK, Abagond, finished with my slight derailment 🙂
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@v8driver: I like obsequious it a fun word to describe brown nose.
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Would it be fair to describe The Economist as an “elitist” publication?
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Linda, I’m not shocked, just curious what Abagond makes of such outbursts in light of his claim that ethnocentrism is in some way more benign and/or normal than racism.
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@ mariareginacd
I enjoy authors that are descriptive in their writing. Do you have a recommendation for a particular book that you enjoyed the most from these mentioned authors? Thanks in advance 🙂
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@lifelearner
Nabokov: “Ada” I guess of you you have to have a lot of time on your hands though and are next to the internet,you have know a lot of European and Cold War History to understand even the basic premise it’s totally worth it though and I enjoy it immensely. I can and have read it over and over again for passages like this:
“The fire you rubbed left its brand on the most vulnerable, most vicious and tender point of my body. Now I have to pay for your rasping the red rash too strongly, too soon, as charred wood has to pay for burning. When I remain without your caresses, I lose all control of my nerves, nothing exists any more than the ecstasy of friction, the abiding effect of your sting, of your delicious poison.”
“Lolita” if you just want to sit down and be absorbed:
“I loved you. I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you. I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! And there were times when I knew how you felt, and it was hell to know it, my little one.”
There are so many ways that sentence could be made more concise but I can recite more passages in Nabokav from memory than I can from the bible. He slips so many puns and dirty jokes into “Lolita” it’s ridiculous too, you will laugh out loud:
Inly dying, inly moaning, I glimpsed a reasonably wide shoulder of road
ahead, and bumped and wobbled into the weeds. Remember she is only a child,remember she is only–
Hardly had the car come to a standstill than Lolita positively flowed
into my arms. Not daring, not daring let myself go–not even daring let
myself realize that this (sweet wetness and trembling fire) was the
beginning of the ineffable life which, ably assisted by fate, I had finally
willed into being–not daring really kiss her, I touched her hot, opening
lips with the utmost piety, tiny sips, nothing salacious; but she, with an
impatient wriggle, pressed her mouth to mine so hard that I felt her big
front teeth and shared in the peppermint taste of her saliva. I knew, of
course, it was but an innocent game on her part, a bit of backfisch foolery
in imitation of some simulacrum of fake romance, and since (as the
psychotherapist, as well as the rapist, will tell you) the limits and rules
of such girlish games are fluid, or at least too childishly subtle for the
senior partner to grasp–I was dreadfully afraid I might go too far and
cause her to start back in revulsion and terror.
The narrator flat out says that he’s a planning to rape this twelve year old girl.
And its is so horrible and yet… it’s so funny on so many levels it doesn’t come across as what it is until you stop to think about it.
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@Speakout
People in America. Because this is a very controlling and anti intellectual soceity. Trust me. People DO think differently in other places. Berlin for instance. No one in Germany would have criticized me for a minor stylistic choice like that.
If you ever get the oppurtunity to travel you should. But like me, it will probably spoil you for America forever.
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@Speakout
People criticize but they don’t generally do “thought/emotional” policing like Americans do. As long as you obey the laws, you’re allowed to think what you wish and not be punished for it. You might not be very popular, but in Europe, especially Denmark and Germany if people don’t like you they don’t try to reshape you into what they think you should be. They just kind of accept you and avoid you if they feel the need.
Being a jealous hater isnt in human nature because most normal well adjusted people have better things to do with their lives, from what I’ve seen. And people in Europe are actually very competitive. They have to be.
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@mariareginacd,
The Oxford English Dictionary follows neither what may be considered the British or American norm, but more like something in between.
Abagond did posts on this:
After reading the post links above, you will realize that this is an incorrect sentence. Neither the US nor Britain strictly follows the OED.
(Maybe you can explain why you used “spelled” instead of “spelt”?) 😛
Also, Canada and the parts of Europe that you have travelled in actually constitute relatively small portions of the entire world. If you do indeed travel around the entire world, you will find a combination of US and British spelling conventions that are not consistent with either. Canada, itself, is a mixture. Most of the Americas and the Pacific Islands, and close to half of Asia tend to prefer the US spellings, but none conform exactly to the OED.
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@Jefe
Lol, I didn’t say I travelled the world(couldn’t afford it). I said most of the former British colonies that I lived in used Oxford Style, which is a mix of American and British, as you said, so I didn’t think to remark upon “centre”. As far as Ontario and Montreal went(didn’t make it to the West). That’s why I said I think not that I know.
I’ve seen color/colour, centre/center, realise/realize so often its neurally imprinted that both acceptable. ;-p
And I’m on my mobile, killing time at work, which has the most unpredictable autocorrect, so I scroll up and down too quickly to proofread my comments. Plus if I notice its usually after I posted and its too late to do anything about it.
Plus…way to grammar police a drunk person, Jefe. I’m sorry you have no life, lol
* I know you’re teasing
:-)*
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@ lifelearner
I just realized you said Joyce too. I love “Dubliners” and “Chamber Music”. I guess I enjoy the way description flows like poetry. So much of Scandinavian writers and Europeans in general do this with language: they don’t tell you a story so much as they sing you a story.
Fun Fact: Russia was actually founded by the Vikings.
In Old Norse Roþrslandimeans land of rowing. Most Scandinavian history is in songs, and Denmark, that cheerful(most antidepressant prescribed) little land of windmills at one time ruled all of Northern Europe including Ze Germans. Denmark WAS the Vikings. Danish like to claim it was the Norwegians, that they were the ones who stayed put, but that’s a lie-it was/is the Danish.
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“As a personal experiment, I wrote a few essays using Abagond’s exact writing style (or as close as I could get it to be) and when they were graded and returned, the professors who read them wrote in the margins that I “write beautifully”.”
Yuck. Reminds me of a poetry writing class I took. Most of the time the other students in my group, and the instructor, had nothing good to say about my poems because they were jealous of me and because they couldn’t understand what the eff I was even talking about because of their privilege and hegemonic erasure of people like me. Then I used a big word in a poem and they were raving about how they loved the use of that word. I prefer the right word, the best word, for a poem, whether it is big or simple, and for me it’s usually simple.
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@mariareginacd
I have traveled and known a lot of people from different countries actually. I agree with you that the U.S. is anti-intellectual and Germany and most of Europe is “intellectual” to the point of pretentiousness in my opinion, but I was talking about jealousy and hatred over more than the ability to write well. I agree that healthy well adjusted people have better things to do with their lives, but my life experience has shown me that this is a very small percentage of the population. Lots of people are only kind to you if you have something they can feel pity for you about.
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I hate that feeling when you don’t know how to pronounce a word because you’ve never heard someone say it out loud.
“Hari Kondabolu on “Diaspora” ”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtng_zRjSQY)
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@Speakout
Lots of people are only kind to you if you have something they can feel pity for you about.
Lots of…a..holes. I know, I’m closely related to one of those people. I swear I attract people like that, but…I guess I’d like to think it’s not everyone. The first half of my life it was most people I met. Then as a teenager it was a mix of people. Now as an adult it’s a mixture and even that’s regional and I suspect due to cultural attitudes because… I just never had the same issues when I lived in other places that I do with now. I spent a lot of time alone, but socializing in groups was much more enjoyable in those other cities. Probably because American society is so controlled we have no notion of privacy in many respects. I had/have a lot of friends in those places too. I was just more a liberty to be my own person so whatever faults/flaws I had or they had didn’t strain the relationships as much.
I think everyone has negative aspects of their personality but I also think a certain environment exacerbates those facets.
I hate that feeling when you don’t know how to pronounce a word because you’ve never heard someone say it out loud.
I volunteered at the St.Mary School for the Deaf, I also was a respite worker for developmentally disabled people and my first boyfriend was hearing impaired and he had the same problem. I actually did too because English isn’t my first language. Spanish is. I spent a lot of my preschool years in Panama and Puerto Rico and even without that English as a language is very piecemeal and inconsistent with it’s rules. The grammar system and spelling is modeled after Latin but the pronunciation, depending on the word is some bastardized mix of Germanic/French/Spanish/Italian whatever the f..k. At least with romance languages there’s a lot of linguistic and etymological overlap or similarity but English isn’t even all that similar to Dutch/Nordic/German. The pronunciation is a lot of the times but the grammar is completely different.
Thats the good and the bad thing about English. It’s a world language because of how adaptable it is but it’s extremely variable and the rules just don’t make sense all the time especially compared to Latin which is entirely phonetic.
I cop to having horrible spelling at times because, spelling in English makes no sense to a lot of the time. Most native English speakers just don’t notice a lot of the inconsistencies and contradictions but it’s impossible for me NOT to notice them.
If you it bothers you that much, although I don’t think it’s really an issue even though people are d.cks about it: I’ve heard so many people misuse a word that I mispronounce and not even realize that they don’t know what that word means or that it means the opposite of what they seem to think it means because…if we’re being honest most people learn language passively, like how you acquire vocabulary from text, that’s the most common way of doing it and there’s a lot of room for mistakes. Children of bi lingual people or people with speech problems just get called out on it when at least with this generation it’s everyone. Because the news media is so dumbed down from what it used to be here many intelligent people who don’t have the cultural connection, like white or older people who grew up in the generation with more diverse lexicography and honestly better quality education, they know words but not how they’re pronounced.
If it bothers you, learn IPA and/or play Scrabble or something with some elderly Americans. They don’t even have to be white. Most older people have excellent English diction. My mother does and my father doesn’t because he’s Hispanic and….he actually did most of my homeschooling( when the school district I lived in was on b.llsh.t for about five years and he was he was laid off from construction and he had a pinched sciatic nerve and a broken back) My father never corrected my diction because he…didn’t think to and that’s why I embarrass myself by doing that.
You can do either but the second one is more fun. If you’re okay with ….being humbled by losing scrabble to a ninety year old who’s legally blind. 🙂
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@Speakout
Watch a lot of classic movies too. Get them from the library or watch AMC. It still weirds me out how differently people talked back then. And when I speak people tell me I sound white but…even black and Hispanic talked that way.
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@Speak out
All those movie stars were coached on how to speak properly too That was the standard of the times, elocution lessons and ethnic erasure. Ava Gardner is from South Carolina and she definitely sounded like it once before the studio went to work on her. Rita Hayworth was Spanish, and definitely looked like it in the beginning of her career.
No one is born speaking “properly” everyone is coached by someone, just nowadays there’s no education funding for that or many other humanities/ life skills. That’s why practical things like homeeconomics(laundry,sewing,cooking) or shop(basic plumbing /carpentry/woodworking) aren’t taught anymore. Most of the people I’ve met in NYC don’t even have a driver’s license or know how to drive.
So…don’t feel bad. Everyone is ignorant of something.
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Your version is better.
It’s a sad commentary that “long sentences” equates with “university-level writing”. What about, say, clear, precise sentences? As an undergrad studying literary critical theory I wallowed shamelessly in bloviated academic blather. Years passed and I found myself in a profession where writing is my main tool. My job is to organize information and express ideas to readers with short attention spans in terms that convince them of the rightness of my position. The more I do this, the more I write like you. If you make it easy for people to understand what you are saying, you are more likely to convince them you are correct.
I subscribed to The Economist for a couple of years. It turns into a form of self-torture. The sheer volume of content, like a glacier flowing inexorably into one’s house, crushing all before it. A subscriber holding a job and handling family responsibilities inevitably falls behind, leading to a sense of despair, almost panic. The Onion once ran a short piece of satire about this, something to the effect that The Economist skipped an entire year of publishing to enable its readers to catch up on back issues.
Try Harpers. It’s also about good writing, probably even moreso than The Economist. And readable before the next issue arrives.
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Nothing beats Mad Magazine or The Onion for concise, insightful and all round great writing, especially on political matters!
http://www.theonion.com/
http://www.madmagazine.com/
Kudos!
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@Kiwi
That wasn’t the instructor’s opinion, but you can think what you want.
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@mariareginacd
At least people who are only nice to you if they can pity you for something are better than those people who are cruel to you if there is something they can look down on you for, I guess.
I know what you mean about the horrors of English spelling. I always had good spelling but it’s because I was able to memorize how words were supposed to look by reading a lot, and when I get confused I write out different spelling alternatives until I find one that looks right. Tons of native speakers have horrible spelling though because English spelling is a nightmare. I wouldn’t know you’ve had spelling problems by your posts.
I don’t beat myself up over not knowing how words sound but yeah it is one more thing assh*les use to try to make you feel bad.
More to the topic of this thread, I do change my language if I think a person won’t understand a big word out of politeness. Like one time I told my mother that a professor had told me to get over myself and she laughed and said that she didn’t believe he actually said that. So I explained that he had used a word I didn’t think she knew and that he had said I needed to get out of my own subjectivity. She didn’t know the word, and neither did I before several years of college. But if you don’t know the other person well, that can get condescending. On this site I sometimes use big words but other posters are educated and do as well and I think that the big words I use are important for people of color who come to this site to know, like hegemony.
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@ SpeakOut
More to the topic of this thread, I do change my language if I think a person won’t understand a big word out of politeness.
…Changing my language depends on whether I’m writing or speaking, and if I think to do it or not. If I’m writing, especially on the internet I really don’t bother because it’s the internet and google is a few keystrokes away, if there’s ever a question.
If I’m speaking though, I used to try to consider my audience and try my best not to sound pretentious but…I’m so out of practice as far as what words are considered obscure in English vocabulary that I just don’t bother anymore. The way I speak reflects my experiences and if I use words that people don’t understand(like catechism the other day) and they get intimidated or offended and think I’m showing off instead asking me to explain a term they might be unfamiliar with…that’s their issue not mine. I don’t correct people, like a lot of Europeans do/did to me so I don’t feel guilty. I’m just doing what comes naturally , not dictating to other people, unless they ask me, like up thread about Nabokov and Joyce.
But if you don’t know the other person well, that can get condescending.
That’s what I mean with how tiresome social control in America can be at times. At least for me. How can your knowledge offend someone else’s ignorance? I’m not deliberately being obtuse I just..really don’t get that.
Communication is a form of self expression to me. Period. Society should only care how you do it, if you decide to do it in a way that harms society.Dictating to people how they should express themselves is a slippery slope to me.
Abagond WASNT doing that. He just pointed out that the writer was using language in a way that could be considered lying by omission. I just thought most journalists worked in a field that served a diplomatic function, in many respects, and did things like that on purpose: to tell the truth without offending anyone(especially their sponsors).
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@mariareginacd
“How can your knowledge offend someone else’s ignorance? ”
The Architect in the Matrix comes to mind. People who talk like that, which is similar in some ways to the Economist excerpt. I’m also thinking that there’s a difference between ignorance and educational privilege.
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@Kiwi
It wasn’t the case that the instructor had nothing good to say. It’s interesting that you think you’re a better judge of my life experiences than I am when I was there and you only have a few sentences to go by. Again, you can think what you want.
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@SpeakOut
I’m also thinking that there’s a difference between ignorance and educational privilege.
I understand your point. But to my thinking, everyone is educated. Whether they were privileged enough to go to a private Montessori school, like I did on a scholarship, or learned at home with their parent, like I also did, or in some other way. I have many practical skills: driving, basic marksmanship, sewing, Latin, ASL, that that I learned because of circumstance AND personal initiative. I know from experience that even with exposure, learning something is entirely up to the student. Most knowledge is circumstantial , as is privilege and it’s easy to confuse the two at first glance.
That’s why I feel like it’s a waste of time to make value judgments about another person’s self expression, at least in the way Americans seem to do. People make value judgement everywhere for the same reasons but I feel that’s the problem with American society: that people refuse to own up to those judgments, and they use a trivial issue as a springboard and that those judgments carry so much weight for things that are often misunderstood or confused.
For instance: names. That ever shifting standard of what is/isn’t considered “Black” names, even though most Black people, like most Americans have European Names. Because American Society is forever trying to punish us for existing(even though they brought us here, against our express will and consent.).
I hate that whole debate because, besides being racist it’s completely redundant. You can have a name that’s “whiter” than rice and still be discriminated against. My name is very obviously French but it’s not a common French name or even recognizably French like Dominique or Chloe. My last name is common and it’s English so…I don’t know or care what people think when they see it written on a job application/resume because I know if they don’t call me back or assume something negative, I’d rather starve to death than work for them.
That’s how people became slaves originally, taking control of someone’s life was considered a fair exchange for saving it.
Besides: Names. Don’t. Have. Any. Real. Meaning. In. America. We’re not the kind of society with that kind of language. We’re not even really a culture, we’re a cultural vacuum. Words are starting to become meaningless too, because of this weird anti intellectualism sh.t that’s going on. It’s kind Orwellian in a sense.
Privilege doesn’t offend me unless it’s being used to oppress me. Not because I want privileges, but assuming we’re equals, I can just ignore the person if I don’t like that about them. There are way more oppressive life threatening forms of privilege than word or speaking choice to worry about.
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@mariareginacd
I agree with you that everyone can be educated in the sense of being wise and skilled and knowledgeable. By educational privilege I meant people who have had access to the type of education that is considered superior in the colonial view of the world aka western universities.
You won’t find anti-intellectualism everywhere in the U.S. In academia and among white liberals intellectualism is prized and/or people compete as to who knows more elite cultural references. Or do you mean something else by intellectualism?
I have a Mexican last name which is supposed to discourage employers from calling you for interviews, but I would never change it. But yeah, people of color have to deal with choosing to give their children “white” names or not, and what others will project onto them however they decide.
“There are way more oppressive life threatening forms of privilege than word or speaking choice to worry about.”
I would agree with you except that language along with everything else is controlled to serve the interests of the super rich elites who control the world.
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In academia and among white liberals intellectualism is prized and/or people compete as to who knows more elite cultural references.
gaaah not in my experience, lol !
Feigned intellectualism is prized. In private education at all levels and in public sphere but actuallyless so there. I saw people in Masters Programs who seriously had the reading comprehension skills of eighth graders. I don’t even want to say what University it was at. It was one of the big names though.
Education and intelligence are SO not the same thing. It depends on the school in regards to how strict their standards are but I can tell you honestly that superior education, like a school with an equestrian club-like the one I went to, is SOOOO overblown in terms of academic rigorousness.
Like you know in private school you don’t have to do standardized testing right?
At least in Illinois they’re exempt. Thats how WHITE middle to upper class people manage to get their dumb a.s kids into big name universities. And believe me they may have perfect pronunciation maybe, but they’re as stupid as stone boats a lot of the time. They get passed on SOOO many things it’s ridiculous. That’s why so many of them want to get their kids into private schools. The NAME is what gets you somewhere, because it’s a class signifier, you don’t even have to be well to do in terms of income, it’s just like a VIP pass into higher education and careers. Upper class people are exempt from many things that hide a lot of their dirty laundry. I know from going to school with those people and living/working with them.
The good thing about private education is that you DO exposed to things that expand your mind: going to opera and riding horses. But you don’t necessarily need a private education for that. You have to:
1) be aware of it(HARDER than most people think)
2) have access to it (easier than many people think, I share shortcuts all the time. Seriously: Hit me up if you want to find out how to get an undergraduate degree for $3200 or cheap yearly passes to the MET. Holla at your girl, lol!)
3) Have a LOOOT of time on your hands.
When people say it’s not about WHATyou know it’s about WHO you know: that is definitely TRUE. Thats the most valuable thing that I learned in private school: which questions to ask and who to ask And what language to use.
I would agree with you except that language along with everything else is controlled to serve the interests of the super rich elites who control the world.
Not as well controlled as you might think. Even the weakest people have the power to refuse. And most privileged people are lazy in my experience. If you make them work to control you, and you resist long enough and consistently enough you’ll weaken their resolve. Most people are just too afraid to refuse or don’t have the endurance. But that’s the one passive form of power that can never be taken away from you.
People have to SUBMIT to control, it’s not as forced as people like to pretend it is.
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@Speakout
The reason people want to get their kids into Ivy League Schools at least in America is because of how lax the academic standards are. Once you get admitted. You can actually flunk out of Ivy League Schools like Princeton and Harvard repeatedly and still go back an finish your degree. Often times without paying tuition again.
I’m not bragging but I seriously did get accepted to Princeton. JUST because of the private boarding school I went to. But I wanted to go to a technical institute and that’s where I ended up going because unless you go to medical or law school it’s basically just…a joke in terms of actual education. Like.. you just sit around, drink/get high excessively and learn useless b.lls.t that unless you have family connection or sleep with a museum curator or something….it will be of no further use whatsoever to you in terms of career or life skills.
No lie- I’m poor because my mother made that mistake. Thank god she married a man with a trade skill and learned bookkeeping because HOLY was she not cut out to be an upper echelon housewife man!
And unlike most of my peers who did go to Ivy League, the minorities at least, they’re unemployed. Or working in (racist/sexist)academia with crap wages, no benefits or job security, or they’re doing an unpaid internship to get a better paid job in the private sector, because they don’t know anyone who can hook them up, doesn’t matter if they’re qualified.
I’m poor. And I’ve not lived at home since I was 14. I’m not going back now, and I need skills to survive and I wasn’t going to find some rich guy to prostitute myself to by getting married, like my mom honestly wanted me to do and for women what all that education is for-to get a rich husband. Even with scholarship, all those uniforms and life expenses will build up a debt you have to pay back. It’s not a stated requirement to wear designer clothes at Princeton but good luck getting a reference for graduate school if you don’t, or a job. Or anything really.
Me and my mother used to buy Gap/Old Navy clothes and then sew BeBe/DKNY/J.Crew/Alfani Labels on them that we got from Goodwill.
I’m an adult, I’m too tired to front like that, especially for what it gets you. Like your socio economic class background will catch up with you eventually and I’m not interested in being a black version of Moll Flanders.
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@Speakout
The richer the school is the better their resources are as well. So a lot of times I was BETTER academically than kids with more money than me because I actually used a lot of resources they had access to but just didn’t use.
I didn’t buy any of my textbooks. I just borrowed them from other students, and copied them with a book or microfilm scanner, or I borrowed old editions from the school library and did that. Not that I ever use textbooks, I always go to the primary sources. Good thing moms got that useless library science degree!
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@mariareginacd
“Not as well controlled as you might think. Even the weakest people have the power to refuse. And most privileged people are lazy in my experience. If you make them work to control you, and you resist long enough and consistently enough you’ll weaken their resolve. Most people are just too afraid to refuse or don’t have the endurance. But that’s the one passive form of power that can never be taken away from you.
People have to SUBMIT to control, it’s not as forced as people like to pretend it is.”
I super agree, but that’s why they institutionalize all these forms of oppression to hit us from all angles to wear us down so that we have to use all our energy just to to survive, and at the same time all these forms of oppression are designed to cause our early deaths/suicide.
“And unlike most of my peers who did go to Ivy League, the minorities at least, they’re unemployed. Or working in (racist/sexist)academia with crap wages, no benefits or job security, or they’re doing an unpaid internship to get a better paid job in the private sector, because they don’t know anyone who can hook them up, doesn’t matter if they’re qualified. ”
Yup. That’s what tends to happen if you’re a person of color without family wealth or connections, even if you go to an elite university.
“It’s not a stated requirement to wear designer clothes at Princeton but good luck getting a reference for graduate school if you don’t, or a job. Or anything really. ”
Seriously? I can believe it though because I saw how selfish the profs were at my uni, getting rid of people in office hours if they viewed them as having nothing they wanted and vice versa. Academia is a bunch of courtiers relishing palace intrigues I swear. I’d find that profs got their jobs because they were proteges of famous intellectuals (connections) even though the other profs in the department openly looked down on that prof, and profs that got their jobs and institutional protection even through gross abuses because they came from wealthy privileged backgrounds and were able to use their connections to raise money for the uni.
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@Speakout
Exactly. Plus without the right kind of clothes, people will assume or act as if they assume you work at school or you’re in the wrong place. Many PoC parents unenroll their children from private schools because they get hazed into PTSD and/or they constantly get confused for or treated like hired help.
Security called the police on me at my own school just because I wasn’t wearing the uniform and someone thought the janitors daughter(even though that school had no black janitors) snuck onto the grounds to…..ride the horses or steal something….from the library.
My friend that worked at the Republican National Convention (don’t ask) said they did that to her. She wasn’t even upset she was just explaining how her day went.
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@mariareginacd
“Plus without the right kind of clothes, people will assume or act as if they assume you work at school or you’re in the wrong place. Many PoC parents unenroll their children from private schools because they get hazed into PTSD and/or they constantly get confused for or treated like hired help.”
I’d bet that a lot of the time they’re pretending to assume that in order to bully and harass you. I actually did clean in exchange for classes at different arts schools that are traditionally elite and majority white, and that definitely allowed me to see people’s true characters. This one teacher would keep asking my name and pretending to forget it and then when I’d come in to clean she’d say super loud, “Oh we have to leave, class, MARIA’s coming to clean now!” Other students would do similar crap. Public schools aren’t that much better in terms of avoiding hazing into PTSD, however.
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@SpeakOut
You’re exactly right.
Public schools aren’t that much better in terms of avoiding hazing into PTSD, however.
Yes you hazed/harassed for free at public school. In private school you’re paying money out of pocket and in my case spending extra time to travel or get driven to another country, for the privilege.
My mother just wanted me to “have access” to better quality educational materials and leisure time to pursue psychologically enriching( My mother actually used the term) extracurricular activities like equestrian club or music rooms. And THAT at least was worth it.
I loved my horse, SO much. For many years that Appaloosa I rode(his name was Popcorn. I found that insulting so I secretly called him Apache He responded to that name, so clearly I understood him better.) was literally the ONLY friend I had. And Apache was better more loyal company than 97% of people that went to that school. Heck, 97% of the people I meet. Apache and the library was the only reason I toughed it out for as long I did.
Getting hazed and racially harassed had other benefits too: the process broke me but that forced me to rebuild myself into a more durable capable sort of person. I taught myself a wide range of thinking styles and coping techniques that I still benefit from. One of which is enjoying my own company, not caring a whit for the opinions of others and…weirdly enough animal caretaking and husbandry.
And as a poor kid, poor woman now, I always wanted pets but I can barely afford to live myself so like children, I’d feel irresponsible having one live with me. Although when I see homeless people in NYC with a cat or a dog, it makes me smile. I volunteer at a animal shelter but I only do that when I really crave companionship because I identify too much with the animals and I can’t save all of them like I really want to. My youngest sibling that has autistic spectrum disorder enjoys working with animals. People with autistic spectrum disorder or developmental disabilities, like Temple Gradin, connect very easily with animals for that reason I suspect.
They say people with developmental disabilities can’t communicate but they DO communicate in their own way and no one will let them so they just don’t bother. People who are Hearing Impaired , like my first love, often refuse to wear the cochlear implant because, beside the fact that they don’t like it(not because they enjoy deafness but the implant distorts sound so it’s really uncomfortable to wear. It makes people sound like The Predator ) they have their own ways of communicating and their own culture that they feel connected to. They don’t think there’s anything about them that needs to be “fixed”, they’ve adapted to live the way THEY want to live and human beings they have that right. There’s so many horrible ways that hearing/visually impaired people are/have been treated many of them enjoy being “not normal”. And I gotta say, hearing impaired people HAVE THE BEST PARTIES. They’re excellent dancers because all they hear is the beat, not the sound. The bass is serious! He and many other boys in that community were very skilled in other forms of non verbal communication as well 😉
Even if was given the ability to hear sound the way I do, I wouldn’t have blamed him for deciding to not listen to most of the garbage that I hear all time. I used to dream that if my brother would suddenly tell people he understood them and he was just ignoring them and to sh.t the f.ck up and let him draw his pictures, lol.
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@Speakout
My first love, who hearing impaired, I’ll call him Mhunted and did taxidermy and I know that sounds weird but he was excellent at both. He basically had an hawk eye: just excellent eye for detail and almost computer like artist skills. Physically fit, he kind of looked like the Rock . Didn’t think I talked to much, like a lot of men( he could actually understand me, he just couldn’t hear me, he always gave direct eye contact or asked questions) and he was an excellent dancer and enjoyed to dance.
All of the “normal” men I dated since were not as much fun or as skilled as him. To the point that they seem less masculine, in every sense, to me.
He was a janitor at an elite Arts College and hated it too!
Have you ever watched “Art School Confidential”? If you haven’t, I think you’ll find it hilariously accurate: http://www.amazon.com/Art-School-Confidential-Max-Minghella/dp/B000H6SXSI
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@mariareginacd
“Yes you hazed/harassed for free at public school.”
Hah hah the silver lining I guess.
“Getting hazed and racially harassed had other benefits too: the process broke me but that forced me to rebuild myself into a more durable capable sort of person. I taught myself a wide range of thinking styles and coping techniques that I still benefit from. One of which is enjoying my own company, not caring a whit for the opinions of others and…weirdly enough animal caretaking and husbandry.”
Same here with bullying and harassment over a variety of social categories. Animals are the best. I volunteered at an animal shelter too recently but unfortunately it was run by the sheriff’s office so there were psycho LEOs all over the place and the volunteer program was dominated by old white women who’d be b*tchy and racist to the people of color who came in, acted all scared of the jail inmates (“criminals”) who did convict labor there, and loved the psycho b*tch LEOs. It was sad to break up animal families. Families are important for a lot of mammals just as much as they are for people.
“There’s so many horrible ways that hearing/visually impaired people are/have been treated many of them enjoy being “not normal”. ”
Because they’d rather be around people who understand them/not be around ignorant oppressive people?
“They’re excellent dancers because all they hear is the beat, not the sound. ”
Interesting. I was actually talking about cleaning at dance schools, not art colleges. I was in a class where I was the only one who could dance to the beat. It’s not because most of the other students were white because almost all the students are always white and that was the first time in my life I ever was with people who couldn’t dance to the music. Probably it was because they were too much in their heads. Several of the women had Ph.D.s in that class.
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Probably it was because they were too much in their heads. Several of the women had Ph.D.s in that class.
LMAOOOO! Yes, yes. The technical institute I went to was next the School for the Deaf and I spent so much time at St.Mary’s because the campus parties at my school sucked. I’m as cerebral as any a nerd and I’ll probably not going to win dancing with the stars, but Jesus Christ how can you NOT have rhythm? That’s a psychological disorder, if anything is.
My sister has an advanced degree and she can’t cook or dance to save her life, lmao.
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@mariareginacd
Just goes to show how the the western university and the colonial hierarchy of knowledge is way unbalanced in favor of the left brain to the point that the right doesn’t function how it’s supposed to anymore.
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@ Linda wrote:
“the President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, said it best:
“South African’s will kick down a statue of dead white man but won’t even attempt to slap alive one.
Yet they can stone to death a black man simply because he’s a foreigner,””
In the midst of the deep sorrow we all feel in Southern African countries and, indeed, in all Africa, because of the unacceptable behavior of some South African citizens towards foreigners, especially from African countries, in the last 2 or 3 months, a interesting and telling exchange of open letters took place between a Mozambican citizen – the writer Mia Couto (who is White) – and a South African citizen – nothing less than President Jacob Zuma (who is Black).
This exchange and the personality of their authors is interesting in that it shows a less known fine detail in the human tapestry that make up the societies in the Southern African region of the World.
Let’s look at the exchange:
From Mia Couto (17th April 2015):
http://bookslive.co.za/blog/2015/04/20/award-winning-mozambican-author-mia-coutos-open-letter-to-jacob-zuma-on-xenophobia-crisis-we-remember-you-in-maputo/
Form President Jacob Zuma (24th April 2015):
http://www.timeslive.co.za/ilive/2015/04/24/open-letter-from-president-jacob-zuma-to-mia-couto-ilive
I hope that eventually Abagond will find the energy to look into this issue of “xenophobia in South Africa” and write something… there is a very informative article on Wikipedia about this, and much more…
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