As do all right-thinking persons, I've got George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" in my web browser's main bookmark menu (just under Mapquest, actually). In this inspiring manifesto for clear writing, he does note brevity is not the same thing as clarity; nonetheless, I think one might be forgiven for confusing them. That's particularly the case when reading the works of many members of my guild, who often give the impression of being paid by the word. Very likely, they write like they preach, and they preach by going on and on, giving three examples when one will do and quoting two dead theologians when no quotation was necessary. This too-prevalent pedantry, this insistence on flogging dead oratories with word upon tedious work, has produced in me a paranoid obsession with brevity in my own writing and speaking.
I bring this up because I have just completed two essays which were so pedantic I actively detested the act of writing them. Again and again, I brought up points of only tangential relevance, and went to ridiculous lengths to clarify that which was already transparent. These may be (and this is saying something) the most boring pieces I've ever written.
And it's not my fault.
I've come to realize pedantry is sometimes dictated by one's subject, or, more precisely, one's audience. If said audience is impressed by an awesome flow of verbiage, if it tends to accept every example in support of an argument as entirely sound of itself, then the person addressing it must argue similarly. Leave a single illustration unanswered, and the audience, having never learned to think through the arguments for themselves, will think the defeated proposition still stands. In other words, sometimes the only way to fight erroneous pedantry is with informed pedantry.
I bring this up because I have just completed two essays which were so pedantic I actively detested the act of writing them. Again and again, I brought up points of only tangential relevance, and went to ridiculous lengths to clarify that which was already transparent. These may be (and this is saying something) the most boring pieces I've ever written.
And it's not my fault.
I've come to realize pedantry is sometimes dictated by one's subject, or, more precisely, one's audience. If said audience is impressed by an awesome flow of verbiage, if it tends to accept every example in support of an argument as entirely sound of itself, then the person addressing it must argue similarly. Leave a single illustration unanswered, and the audience, having never learned to think through the arguments for themselves, will think the defeated proposition still stands. In other words, sometimes the only way to fight erroneous pedantry is with informed pedantry.
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