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Jul. 13th, 2018 10:08 pm1. Smartbitches had a review of a book with various romantic tropes that I adore, but alas..as one commentator succinctly put it -- "The snippets with the pompous language and overuse of adjectives, put me off completely. I can't handle the writing style. So my TBR pile isn't tempted at all."
Example of said writing style:
“A professional busybody,” the duke said with fractious scorn. “Have you no shame, no thought of conscience for your machinations?”
“Of course I have a conscience,” she said with unflinching certainty, hiking up her chin. “When the circumstance warrants such feelings, it is the first to rear at me. This morning, however, you are the only one rearing, which tells me you are prone to exaggerated emotions. This is something I must note for your file. If you’ll excuse me.”
Picking up her book from the desk, she held it against her like a shield. She had every intention of walking out the door. The only problem was, he was still blocking the way. Not only that, but she still had his letter beneath her slipper. Bother.
“I will not excuse you, Miss Bourne. You are trespassing in my home, disguised as a servant, and–”
Yes, I'm picky about writing styles as well. Not a fan of the overly minimalistic style favored by various journalists, Ernest Hemingway and my father. Nor a fan of the above Regency Romance style favored by Georgette Heyer and various Regency Historical novelists..who unlike Heyer, don't quite have the same excuse. In Heyer's defense -- they wrote like that when she wrote these books way back sometime prior to the 1950s. These are copycats. Also really not a fan of Henry James/Harding/Hawthorn's gothic style. Wharton I can handle, sort of, and Bronte's are okay...but I can't get through the others -- it's like wading through the equivalent of word quicksand. This may be a dyslexic thing? It may be that I need to hear the rhythm of words in my head to make sense of them - and if they don't sound right...it's discordant? I don't know. Do we ever know why some things work for us and other's don't?
I know I can't stand academic writing. It's one of the reasons I chose not to pursue a career in academia. The other reason is I do not test well and have no facility for languages. Both are required. And, not an auditory learner -- I can listen to a lecture, but I cannot take notes during it, and I have to repeat what they are saying in my head and interact with it. I cannot just sit and listen...my mind wanders, and I lose about 75% of it. I've gotten very good at facilitating oral presentations and meetings at work -- because I insist on brevity, and interaction. Also I stopped taking notes about five to six years ago, when I realized I remembered everything perfectly well when I didn't jot anything down.
Legal writing is worse than academic writing. It's wordy. Lawyers like to qualify everything and use a lot of unnecessary connectors such as "Whereas", "Hereto", "Thereof"... Although I prefer both to technical writing, which tends to make me see double (I write and read a lot of technical crap, it's bare bones writing.) Then there's business/financial writing, which uses a lot of charts, is simplistic in style and has a lot of run-on sentences. Actually so does legal writing -- lawyers adore run-on sentences for some reason.
And all of the above are better than Twitter and Text Short Hand.
Ah, my brain hurts just going over all of it.
2. Conversations at work..
Me: Damn. I skipped words again. Time traveling should be time spent traveling...
Co-worker: You want to go time-traveling?
Me: There are days I wish I could time travel back in time and hunt down Trump's grandfather.
Co-worker: To kill him?
Me: No, I'm not into killing people or anything like that. To deny his application for immigration or immigrant status. I'd boot his ass back to Germany, where he could serve in WWI and die, Trump would never be born. I'd just tell the people approving it -- just deny this one guy his immigration status and you could potentially save so many people..
Co-worker: Have you seen The Butterfly Effect?
Me: Yes, unfortunately. I do realize...that if you step on the wrong butterfly everything could go wrong and not turn out quite the way we planned..
Co-worker: Exactly.
Me: People don't seem to get that with time travel, all you have to do is touch one thing the wrong way..and wham, you don't exist. Although with the way things have been going, I've been wondering if maybe someone invented time travel and has been tinkering, because that would explain a lot.
3. Doofus in UK
US to Brits: Keep him! We'll pay you for care and feeding. Come on. You can ship us Theresa May instead.
UK: Eh, no. We've got enough problems of our own thanks. Besides we told you not to vote for him and vote for the middle-aged woman instead. We voted for the middle-aged woman, what's your problem?
Also, don't send him back -- bloody nuisance.
US to Russia: Keep him!
Russia: We already have Putin. You can keep Trump.
US to France --
France: Don't even think about it.
US to Germany: He's German, come on.
Germany: Nope. We refuse.
US: Sigh. Maybe Canada?
Canada: Absolutely not. We're busy building a wall to keep him out.
US: Mexico?
Mexico: Tear down the wall and do away with ICE and we might consider it.
US: Australia?
Australia: Seriously???
US: China?
China: LOL!
US: Korea?
Korea: We like our crazy dictator better.
US: Elon Musk?? Hello? Mars?
Elton: Currently working on the Flint Water Crisis, but I'll get back to you
Example of said writing style:
“A professional busybody,” the duke said with fractious scorn. “Have you no shame, no thought of conscience for your machinations?”
“Of course I have a conscience,” she said with unflinching certainty, hiking up her chin. “When the circumstance warrants such feelings, it is the first to rear at me. This morning, however, you are the only one rearing, which tells me you are prone to exaggerated emotions. This is something I must note for your file. If you’ll excuse me.”
Picking up her book from the desk, she held it against her like a shield. She had every intention of walking out the door. The only problem was, he was still blocking the way. Not only that, but she still had his letter beneath her slipper. Bother.
“I will not excuse you, Miss Bourne. You are trespassing in my home, disguised as a servant, and–”
Yes, I'm picky about writing styles as well. Not a fan of the overly minimalistic style favored by various journalists, Ernest Hemingway and my father. Nor a fan of the above Regency Romance style favored by Georgette Heyer and various Regency Historical novelists..who unlike Heyer, don't quite have the same excuse. In Heyer's defense -- they wrote like that when she wrote these books way back sometime prior to the 1950s. These are copycats. Also really not a fan of Henry James/Harding/Hawthorn's gothic style. Wharton I can handle, sort of, and Bronte's are okay...but I can't get through the others -- it's like wading through the equivalent of word quicksand. This may be a dyslexic thing? It may be that I need to hear the rhythm of words in my head to make sense of them - and if they don't sound right...it's discordant? I don't know. Do we ever know why some things work for us and other's don't?
I know I can't stand academic writing. It's one of the reasons I chose not to pursue a career in academia. The other reason is I do not test well and have no facility for languages. Both are required. And, not an auditory learner -- I can listen to a lecture, but I cannot take notes during it, and I have to repeat what they are saying in my head and interact with it. I cannot just sit and listen...my mind wanders, and I lose about 75% of it. I've gotten very good at facilitating oral presentations and meetings at work -- because I insist on brevity, and interaction. Also I stopped taking notes about five to six years ago, when I realized I remembered everything perfectly well when I didn't jot anything down.
Legal writing is worse than academic writing. It's wordy. Lawyers like to qualify everything and use a lot of unnecessary connectors such as "Whereas", "Hereto", "Thereof"... Although I prefer both to technical writing, which tends to make me see double (I write and read a lot of technical crap, it's bare bones writing.) Then there's business/financial writing, which uses a lot of charts, is simplistic in style and has a lot of run-on sentences. Actually so does legal writing -- lawyers adore run-on sentences for some reason.
And all of the above are better than Twitter and Text Short Hand.
Ah, my brain hurts just going over all of it.
2. Conversations at work..
Me: Damn. I skipped words again. Time traveling should be time spent traveling...
Co-worker: You want to go time-traveling?
Me: There are days I wish I could time travel back in time and hunt down Trump's grandfather.
Co-worker: To kill him?
Me: No, I'm not into killing people or anything like that. To deny his application for immigration or immigrant status. I'd boot his ass back to Germany, where he could serve in WWI and die, Trump would never be born. I'd just tell the people approving it -- just deny this one guy his immigration status and you could potentially save so many people..
Co-worker: Have you seen The Butterfly Effect?
Me: Yes, unfortunately. I do realize...that if you step on the wrong butterfly everything could go wrong and not turn out quite the way we planned..
Co-worker: Exactly.
Me: People don't seem to get that with time travel, all you have to do is touch one thing the wrong way..and wham, you don't exist. Although with the way things have been going, I've been wondering if maybe someone invented time travel and has been tinkering, because that would explain a lot.
3. Doofus in UK
US to Brits: Keep him! We'll pay you for care and feeding. Come on. You can ship us Theresa May instead.
UK: Eh, no. We've got enough problems of our own thanks. Besides we told you not to vote for him and vote for the middle-aged woman instead. We voted for the middle-aged woman, what's your problem?
Also, don't send him back -- bloody nuisance.
US to Russia: Keep him!
Russia: We already have Putin. You can keep Trump.
US to France --
France: Don't even think about it.
US to Germany: He's German, come on.
Germany: Nope. We refuse.
US: Sigh. Maybe Canada?
Canada: Absolutely not. We're busy building a wall to keep him out.
US: Mexico?
Mexico: Tear down the wall and do away with ICE and we might consider it.
US: Australia?
Australia: Seriously???
US: China?
China: LOL!
US: Korea?
Korea: We like our crazy dictator better.
US: Elon Musk?? Hello? Mars?
Elton: Currently working on the Flint Water Crisis, but I'll get back to you