The idea that an "efficient" sentence is the same thing as a "good" sentence caught on mainly because efficiency is something relatively easy for writing teachers to measure and correct forhttps://twitter.com/LeeFlower/status/1322245404071731200 …
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This goes beyond just professional writing advice to a cultural thing The thing people say where "filler words" used to "soften" the impact of a sentence are a "bad habit" to be purged -- and one associated with femininity and ugly stereotypes of Valley girls etc.
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The assertion that "masculine" speech where the idea is just thrust at you, naked and unadorned, for the hearer to take it or leave it as they will, is *better* speech is left undefended And I don't think it's true
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The um's and like's and I mean's and if that makes sense's serve a function, that's why they're there in the first place Cocooning naked ideas in extra words to soften their impact is part of the point of language, and women especially learn it because it's necessary
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Yeah - I think there's an exception for a lot of legal or other technical writing, which of course, has a really different purpose than fiction prose.
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There's temptation to use a lot of jargon, or redundancy, or equivocation, all of which do make your writing worse. It's also a situation where the reader is NOT doing this for fun, and is looking to get out what they need and move on.
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Everyone knows Robert Burton was the ultimate writer & everyone should aspire to write like him.
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