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paulg's profile
Paul Graham
Paul Graham
Paul Graham
Verified account
@paulg

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Paul GrahamVerified account

@paulg

paulgraham.com
Joined August 2010

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    Paul Graham‏Verified account @paulg 2 Jun 2016

    Unless someone is a bad writer, an alternate phrasing of something they said that's shorter is not what they meant.

    7:31 PM - 2 Jun 2016
    • 69 Retweets
    • 180 Likes
    • Pradeep Kumar S Armin S Perez Arcaen Peter Bloem Mark Estefanos Robin Millor Cunty McShitBalls Georges El Khoury Bader Alqinai
    24 replies 69 retweets 180 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Paul Graham‏Verified account @paulg 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @paulg

        (E.g. If I meant "Never pay to acquire customers" I would have said that instead. It's much more powerful.)

        1 reply 0 retweets 22 likes
      3. 3 more replies
      1. New conversation
      2. Oren Jacob‏ @orenjacob 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @paulg

        yet almost every "great writer" also had a "great editor"...

        2 replies 2 retweets 0 likes
      3. Paul Graham‏Verified account @paulg 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @orenjacob

        No great writer before about 200 years ago did, and many since haven't.

        0 replies 2 retweets 2 likes
      4. End of conversation
      1. Benoît Fleury‏ @benfle 3 Jun 2016
        Replying to @paulg

        Do you mean "Good writing is incompressible."?

        0 replies 2 retweets 7 likes
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      1. Robert (eval 'eye) P. Levy‏ @rplevy 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @paulg

        1. That's extremely reductive. 2. That's not what you meant.

        0 replies 1 retweet 8 likes
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      1. Paul Wiggins‏ @paulwiggins 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @paulg

        .@paulg It's been my privilege to edit fine writers. The finest insist on edits.

        0 replies 2 retweets 3 likes
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      1. New conversation
      2. Colin Percival‏ @cperciva 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @paulg

        Not necessarily what they meant, but possible what they would have meant if they had thought of it. Happens to me a lot...

        1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
      3. Colin Percival‏ @cperciva 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @cperciva @paulg

        (In particular, I often find myself saying several specific things, then someone points out a generalization which I agree with.)

        1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      4. Joe Cooper‏ @swelljoe 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @cperciva @paulg

        Many people are well-served by a good editor.

        1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
      5. Colin Percival‏ @cperciva 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @swelljoe @paulg

        I find that I need people to tighten up my ideas more than I need people to tighten up my English.

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
      6. End of conversation
      1. wallingf‏ @wallingf 3 Jun 2016
        Replying to @paulg

        MT @paulg: Unless someone is a bad writer, a shorter version of something they said is not what they meant.

        0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
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      1. masquerobot‏ @eigenrobot 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @paulg

        but nearly everyone is a bad writer (but maybe most writing is by good writers?)

        0 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
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      1. jae kwon‏ @jaekwon 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @paulg

        The good writer means what they wrote, and nothing shorter.

        0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
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      1. Santorini Dave‏ @SantoriniDave 3 Jun 2016
        Replying to @paulg

        @BenedictEvans Or put another way: Abbreviating well written work will change the meaning.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      1. R_Ganesh‏ @r_ganesh 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @paulg

        @vgr IOW you are saying... oh, I shouldn't, right? ;-)

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      1. Shawn o.O‏ @actlol 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @paulg

        Seeing things like "Elon Musk Thinks That Our Existence Is Someone Else’s Video Game" today certainly illustrates this point.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      1. chrisvnicholson‏ @chrisvnicholson 2 Jun 2016
        Replying to @paulg

        true. but most people are bad writers. present company excluded.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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