I apologize for causing such consternation. I try to be good and enclose my parentheticals within commas, but occasionally you get distracted by something shiny, and… well life happens. Sometimes you get to the end of a post, and you forget you need to go back and clean up the beginning.
When you were diligently diagramming sentences for me in high school, it’s true that I wasn’t really paying attention. I was watching your chubby little milfy ass fill out that sensible wool skirt, and fantasizing about bending you over your desk after school.
And so, in fairness, I do have to agree with the personal characterizations that have been made of me in this thread. I am an intellectually slack grammar tard, punctuating as it pleases me. A lazy rhetorical snail I leave my fetid mucosal slime trail of broken sentences, and dangling participles in my wake as I ooze through the thread.
All people of average reading abilities. If I was just writing for myself, I’d write in a blog. I’d probably still write as readable as I could, because it’s my habit (and I consider it a good one).
I don’t worry about my vocabulary; with this crowd, I use any word that fits. Vocabulary is not the same as readability. I’ll agree that sometimes you need a more complex sentence, but as a sentence gets more complex, you as the author have to be even more on top of readability, using structure, commas, semi-colons, parentheses, and dashes as required to help your readers out.
So, either the author DID help the reader out, and this was exactly what he wanted to say to the reader, or what, you came across a poor sentence, and you are bailing on it.
Either way, so what? I sincerely don’t get it. If you are not interested in the topic, of that thread any longer because there was a convoluted sentence, why is that any different from literally every other thread in which every member here decided they are eventually not interested in it? All thread die, and they die because readers lose interest for one reason or another. If this is your reason, so what? I join or don’t join threads all the time based, in part at least, on the style of the writing there, doesn’t everyone?
Too simple, too complex, unusual vocabulary, it is all fair game. We all do it every visit here. I guess I don’t get why this one sentence is so notable?
If someone doesn’t agree with what you wrote, that is fine; they can ignore it, or they can continue the discussion about it. If someone doesn’t read what you wrote because it’s too badly written (as with the example sentence in the OP), communication has ended. You, the author, ended it with your inability to express yourself. At least, that’s how I look at it. When I’m speaking with someone in real life, and I don’t see the light of understanding come on in their eyes when I tell them something, I will try to rephrase it so they do understand it. I don’t just say the same thing again and blame them for not getting it.
So what? Why does it concern you as a reader if an author stops communicating with you?
It is going to end at some point, so why are you so concerned about which point it happens?
If the sentence is not for you, if it doesn’t speak to you, then so what?
So what? 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999% of the web is exactly that to any reader whatsoever, not even taking into account foreign language issues.
But if you are speaking to a large anonymous crowd though some remote broadcast mechanism, do you worry about each individual listener to the same degree?
I guess I don’t get your broader point. Are your feelings hurt because an author write a sentence you couldn’t decipher? Did it really ruin the overall discussion for you? Is it really a problem for the author, or are you reflecting something about your own internal expectations that it is impossible for every author to know about, let alone abide by?
But why is it the author’s problem if he loses one reader, or in particular YOU?
Maybe he gained another reader or even more with that sentence. Why are you so invested in a personal relationship with an author, and expecting the same from him, that’s what I don’t get.
No, not really. I don’t feel we are converging on an understanding at all. You are not expressing what caused you to be so concerned to me, not matter how simple or complex your sentences are, I just don’t get it, and soon after a few more tries max, I am going to give up.
Clearly it is on your mind, but your sentences are not expressing to this reader what your real concern is.
I’m not particularly concerned; if an author won’t make the effort to make his writing readable, I won’t make an effort to read it. Seems simple to me.
“It’s bizarre that you feel this common as dirt expression which was often expressed by older men of a certain era as a compliment to female children needs to be deconstructed and teased into something inappropriate or an illumination of your father’s sexual inclination.”
No, that rewrite just won’t do. It just doesn’t sing, it doesn’t dance, there’s no seltzer in it’s pants. It’s a brutal, gnarled battering ram of a sentence. It’s lumpy like hurry up oatmeal, and assaults the ear like the rusty bang of two huge railroad freight car couplings slamming together.
My OP? You mean my first post in this thread? What the hell did I say a couple of days ago? {Goes back and looks}
Okay, post #29 - I said, “I support this rant. I don’t want to work that hard at understanding what you’re trying to say - do your own work and make your sentences understandable. No, let me clarify - I WON’T work that hard at understanding what you’re trying to say - I’ll move on and read something I can understand.”
That’s almost exactly what I just said in post #70. Colour me
astro - a brutal, gnarled battering ram of a sentence? You flatter me, sir!
Yes, I lost track of the OP. Sorry. May you never be accused of worse than being the OP in this thread
Still, my broader point was why do you feel that any author owes it to you, an unseen and random potential reader, to make perfect sense to you personally, above all other goals, or even among all other goals the author might have? Why YOU?
Because I am the centre of my universe, just like everyone. No, actually, my position is that an author has a responsibility to ALL potential unseen readers, not just me. An author can have many goals with his writing, but in my opinion, one of the first and most important of them should be to be readable.
But maybe the reader who can’t understand a given sentence is not really among the target audience even if s/he stumbles on it.
E.g. I can go grab a biochemistry journal at the library, and it won;t make a lick of sense even though the forms and grammar will all be familiar. Is the author obliged to provide all material to make it “simple” for me?
I think not.
If I want to understand the point, I will find a way.
No, actually, my position is that an author has a responsibility to ALL potential unseen readers, not just me. An author can have many goals with his writing, but in my opinion, one of the first and most important of them should be to be readable.