-
-
A lot of people just don’t believe in their hearts that different skills are a thing, that you can be good at one thing and bad at another. And people especially don’t like the notion that you can be better at the stylistic part of writing than the “making sense” part.
Show this thread -
But look: my mom, who worked in academic publishing, could do a brilliant job editing a math manuscript for style without knowing calculus.
Show this thread -
She also subconsciously imitated the accent of whoever she was speaking to. And picked up Romanian by listening to phone conversations. She had a freakishly good ear. I’m convinced this is a single phenomenon.
Show this thread -
If I watch an episode of Peaky Blinders I’ll acquire an Irish accent by osmosis for the next hour. I subconsciously pastiche whichever writer I’ve been reading lately. I can’t *not* mirror conversational tone & emotion. One phenomenon.
Show this thread -
I claim Scott Alexander has the same thing: writes compulsively, great at style pastiche, nobody believes him when he says he’s bad at math.
Show this thread -
I think some people are legitimately better at style than sense or vice versa! They are not faking! Fluent pattern-matching != structural comprehension!
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.