tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post8761274267181761313..comments2024-03-28T02:46:03.227-04:00Comments on The Historical Society: Writing Well?Randallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16755286304057000048noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post-76236210525427655472012-07-19T04:23:11.094-04:002012-07-19T04:23:11.094-04:00In my own case, I am not trying to sound clever, a...In my own case, I am not trying to sound clever, and I aspire to write simply and in a narrative style that can capture a broader readership. The challenge, though, is that I know my subject matter well enough that it looks really complex to me. Trying to balance clear prose with a true version of what I see in the records is hard. I am often tempted to qualify statements, to write long sentences, and occasionally to pull out $3 dollar words in order to best express reality. Well, the struggle continues!Gabriel Loiaconohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04455286892298838585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post-14770803814635172812012-07-18T00:29:49.262-04:002012-07-18T00:29:49.262-04:00Were he alive today, Hemingway would gladly cook t...Were he alive today, Hemingway would gladly cook the users of three-dollar words on a spit over an open fire. Historians often struggle to capture the lay reader, and writing in a an overly-complex way certainly doesn't help the cause. Write what you mean, for heaven's sake, people, instead of trawling thesaurus.com for synonyms that you think make you sound clever!Philip Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02137977829854666640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post-34800650245593121162012-07-13T18:46:22.199-04:002012-07-13T18:46:22.199-04:00That could be true about the 1990s esp. Guess we&...That could be true about the 1990s esp. Guess we'll have to wait and see!Randallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16755286304057000048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post-2169028641141669442012-07-13T17:36:39.461-04:002012-07-13T17:36:39.461-04:00Maybe Gabriel is right, and the stuff people read ...Maybe Gabriel is right, and the stuff people read from the 80s and 90s, twenty years from now, won't seem so bad, because only the best stuff will be read. <br /><br />I love that Orwell bit, though: "a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims..."dan allossohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10733670017382794923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post-9330661395844079822012-07-13T11:08:44.990-04:002012-07-13T11:08:44.990-04:00Do you think this writing was a phase of the '...Do you think this writing was a phase of the '80s and '90s? Certainly writing up to the '60s seems much more clear. Or maybe I'm just reading the best of it. <br /><br />I love the term "mind{less}ness" by the way. It is so uncompromisingly self-contradictory.Gabriel Loiaconohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04455286892298838585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post-76935073771885304412012-07-13T09:55:12.656-04:002012-07-13T09:55:12.656-04:00Eric: Well said. I like William Germano said some...Eric: Well said. I like William Germano said some years back in the Chronicle about turning a diss into a book: "A real book manuscript doesn't look over its shoulder, worrying that Foucault is running after it in a hockey mask."Randallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16755286304057000048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7872819010848426693.post-86584543927426493872012-07-13T07:29:46.741-04:002012-07-13T07:29:46.741-04:00I think it's a rite of passage. Most of us ha...I think it's a rite of passage. Most of us have to walk through the valley of transformative hermeneutics before finding our inner Hemingway. And even then we sometimes have to ask: Why did God invent the comma and semicolon, and the eight-syllable word, anyway?Eric B. Schultzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03169391149462048777noreply@blogger.com