# To the reading comprehension challenged Re: Scylla's thread
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [April 2, 2005, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419 "2005-04-02T17:30:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2005, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/61 "2005-04-03T23:55:49Z")
> [@Scylla](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > Originally Posted by Weirddave
> > Scylla, melodramatic writing style or not, I hope that personally you’re feeling better.
>
> Thanks. I am.
Aw, you’re a good egg. I hope things will be sunny side up for you.
As to the writing style – have you ever tried the hardboiled genre?
---
### Author:  [@Primaflora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Primaflora)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/62 "2005-04-04T01:19:00Z")
> [@lezlers](#):
>
> There is a hell of a lot of green in this thread.
Sweetheart, no. I make money editing people’s books. I’m a published author. Trust me, the only colour that I wanna use when I read **Scylla** ’s emoting is my red pen.
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### Author:  [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/63 "2005-04-04T01:22:41Z")
> [@Primaflora](#):
>
> Sweetheart, no. I make money editing people’s books. I’m a published author. Trust me, the only colour that I wanna use when I read **Scylla** ’s emoting is my red pen.
Ok, so you can pat yourself on the back while honking your own horn.
Can you pat yourself on the head while rubbing your tummy? Try it. It ain’t easy.
---
### Author:  [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/64 "2005-04-04T02:15:12Z")
> [@Primaflora](#):
>
> Sweetheart, no. I make money editing people’s books. I’m a published author. Trust me, the only colour that I wanna use when I read **Scylla** ’s emoting is my red pen.
Really? What did you write? I’m a published author, too! Ain’t it cool?
I just write for fun. I’ve never submitted anything. Editors and agents have come to me and asked to publish what I write without even asking.
I make my money in a lucrative if unaesthetically satisfying fashion, so for me it’s just an outlet that makes me happy. When I communicate something while writing, it makes me feel good to try to be creative. I enjoy it. It helps me, and I like communicating that way.
If you’re such hot shit, why don’t you make yourself useful and offer me a tip? Or, if I suck so bad, and am so far beneath you, than just go about your business and leave me alone. I know I’m not all that good. You don’t do me any favors by telling me how great **you** are and how I bad I suck by comparison.
The rub is, if you have to tell us that, the only person that needs convincing is yourself.
So little Ms. “I am a published author and an editor,” why don’t you do me a favor. Print this post out and put it on the floor. Then you can take your red pen stick it halfway up your ass. squat over the paper and edit the shit out of it.
Goddamn.
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### Author:  [@pokey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pokey)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/65 "2005-04-04T03:05:21Z")
> [@Scylla](#):
>
> … you can take your red pen stick it halfway up your ass. squat over the paper and edit the shit out of it.
Ha ha.
Now there’s some flowin prose! Max Hardcore fan?
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### Author:  [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/66 "2005-04-04T03:15:53Z")
> [@Primaflora](#):
>
> Sweetheart, no. I make money editing people’s books. I’m a published author. Trust me, the only colour that I wanna use when I read **Scylla** ’s emoting is my red pen.
Ah, so you’re author of _Pompous, Bitchy Self-Righteousness for Dummies_, I take it? Excellent read; I couldn’t put it down.
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/67 "2005-04-04T03:23:18Z")
**Scylla** : 1
**Primaflora** : 0
For my pair of pennies, I too have made money editing papers, and will soon hold an advanced degree in education, yada yada yada… **Scylla** writing is pretty good, and there would be only minor changes I could see if I put on my editor hat.
But… so what? Why is his writing style such an issue? Why is it an issue at all? Maybe I’m just likening this too much to my time served in highschool, but I’m hearing much of the criticism as the same sort of crap I got; jealous fucks busy asking “Why don’t you speak English?” whenever I used a polysyllabic word.
I mean, honestly… if someone earns your venom not for what they say, or their debating style, but for their writing style… well, I think you need lighten up.
Seriously. Craft =/= being a jerk.
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/68 "2005-04-04T03:25:11Z")
And the first person to point out the typos in my post will have the wrath of **Gaudere** ’s law hurled down upon them like little pointy toothpicks of destruction!
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### Author:  [@AwSnappity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AwSnappity)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/69 "2005-04-04T03:45:38Z")
> [@Scylla](#):
>
> So little Ms. “I am a published author and an editor,” why don’t you do me a favor. Print this post out and put it on the floor. Then you can take your red pen stick it halfway up your ass. squat over the paper and edit the shit out of it.
>
> Goddamn.
I usually avoid your threads since my attention span is pretty close to zilch, but I gotta say, after this line I’m definitely a fan. And since I don’t read your threads, I don’t know exactly what’s going on with you (as per the recent thread in question), but from what I’ve deduced, it seems like you and I are going through similar phases. You’re not alone. I hope everything gets better for you.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/70 "2005-04-04T03:46:28Z")
_Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses_, Mark Twain
[http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/fenimore-coopers-literary-offences/index.asp](http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/fenimore-coopers-literary-offences/index.asp)
Cringe before the instruction of The Master, and be silent, worms!
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### Author:  [@Hamadryad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamadryad)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/71 "2005-04-04T04:02:20Z")
> [@Scylla](#):
>
> … look at the amount of effort and energy and feeling that goes into hating me from a Zette, or a Jarbaby or a Hamadryad and the simple facts of the matter are that they are degrading themselves by doing it,…
This is the part where you show me any indication anywhere that I hate you, or find you laughable for anything other than that particular kind of florid prose…and it’s not even YOU that I find laughable, it’s that particular writing style. I did not anywhere in that thread attack **you** , the **poster**.
Don’t go spewing that I have put “effort and energy” into “hating” you when I have demonstrably done no such thing.
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### Author:  [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/72 "2005-04-04T04:02:53Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Sweetheart, no. I make money editing people’s books. I’m a published author. Trust me, the only colour that I wanna use when I read Scylla’s emoting is my red pen.
Lezlers accuses you of being jealous of Scylla. You respond by once again attacking Scylla’s writing style though he has, to my knowledge, never solicited your opinion (be it professional or otherwise) on the matter. If it’s not professional jealousy, then please enlighten us as to why you’ve got a bug up your ass when it comes to his writing style? Surely you don’t march into other people’s threads and spit this sort of venom because we dare to dangle our participles.
It would be like the local pro mouthing off about my tennis skills while watching me play in the Friday night social. He may be spot on that my backhand sucks. The fact that OTHER people pay him to critique their game doesn’t give him a license to spout off about MY game. In fact, doing so makes him look a bit like a jerk.
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### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/73 "2005-04-04T04:16:46Z")
> [@Primaflora](#):
>
> Sweetheart, no. I make money editing people’s books. I’m a published author. Trust me, the only colour that I wanna use when I read **Scylla** ’s emoting is my red pen.
Well, whoop-de-doo.
I make my money proofreading other people’s stuff, and from time to time copy-editing. I’m a published author. Trust me, the only color you’re emitting is green.
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### Author:  [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/74 "2005-04-04T04:19:49Z")
> [@PrimaFlora](#):
>
> Sweetheart, no. I make money editing people’s books. I’m a published author. Trust me, the only colour that I wanna use when I read Scylla’s emoting is my red pen.
Oh, well why didn’t you SAY so? That makes your opinion worth SO much more than anyone else’s, right?
Give me a break.
I’m also a published author and a regular contributor to several magazines. As far as I have been able to determine, the only place this is even remotely impressive is my mother-in-law’s living room. (She thinks I am just the cat’s ass.)
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### Author:  [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/75 "2005-04-04T04:27:43Z")
> [@lezlers](#):
>
> The posts insulting **Scylla’s** _style_ of writing while ignoring the substance is the equivalent of snickering at his accent.
Like fuck it is.
Anyone who puts their writing “out there” is fair game. “Style” is not something that is uncontrollable or unbidden in a writer. Writers can refine their style, mold it, and evolve. When you write for a teacher, for any class from middle-school English to a University 500 level Lit course, you will be graded on style on top of content. It’s pretty self-evident that style is just as important to the quality of someone’s writing as the substance. How many editions has _The Elements Of Style_ by Strunk and White, been through now? 50?
Comparing style to an accent, which someone can’t necessarily control, is disingenuous at best and just stupid at worst.
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### Author:  [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/76 "2005-04-04T05:04:07Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> And the first person to point out the typos in my post will have the wrath of **Gaudere** ’s law hurled down upon them like little pointy toothpicks of destruction!
I’m not pointing out a typo, but I am curious … I have never seen “=/=” as a representation of “doesn’t equal” before. I’m familiar with “!=” from my limited study of C++; is “=/=” also from a programming language?
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/77 "2005-04-04T05:06:43Z")
> [@Snooooopy](#):
>
> I’m not pointing out a typo, but I am curious … I have never seen “=/=” as a representation of “doesn’t equal” before. I’m familiar with “!=” from my limited study of C++; is “=/=” also from a programming language?
Actually, it’s my attempt to represent what I saw math/philosophy profs do for a while, which is draw an equal sign and then a diagonal slash through it to represent ‘not equal’ .
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### Author:  [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/78 "2005-04-04T05:48:02Z")
Oh, you mean this thing?
≠
(U+2260)
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/79 "2005-04-04T05:52:23Z")
How’d you do that!?!
(What’s u+2260?)
I’m totally clueless when it comes to computers sometimes…
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### Author:  [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2005, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-reading-comprehension-challenged-re-scyllas-thread/297419/80 "2005-04-04T06:08:10Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> How’d you do that!?!
>
> (What’s u+2260?)
>
> I’m totally clueless when it comes to computers sometimes…
Got a character map? If you’ve got Windows, it’s usually under start\>all programs\>accessories\>system tools. It’ll bring up a screen full of interesting little symbols you can type by copying-and-pasting. This particular one can’t be done using keyboard codes, but a lot of them can. ALT+0153 gives you ™, ALT+0135 gives you † .
You’re probably not clueless, I just have a lot of time on my hands.
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