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PhilGoetz comments on Common Errors in History - Less Wrong
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Comments (47)
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I don't really know how to describe why I down voted it. There just isn't anything here to talk about or learn. I have no idea why anyone mentioned "Common Errors in History" and you didn't provide a link, so I have no reason to care about it.
Even if I wanted to care, your points don't hold much informative value:
The examples you give mean nothing to me. I have no idea how important they are in English culture. And, anyway, if I read a pamphlet highlighting common errors in American textbooks I would not assume that every child would have remembered those facts.
I can replace this header with any nationality and it is still as valid. The point is interesting, but it isn't given enough treatment that I can actually insert it into my beliefs about English history textbooks. This is the best of the three points.
You spend two paragraphs on this point and each paragraph you argue against the point with the first sentence. So I read this as, "X may be true! But it may not. But it may! But it may not."
All in all, the post seems to say, "I found a book because someone somewhere mentioned it for some reason and it wasn't interesting." It makes me wonder why it wasn't a comment in response to the original mention.
Since you asked: for me it was disorganized and disorienting to follow. It starts off like you're looking for common errors in history, and then when you start your list, I can't tell if you're saying:
1) what you think are common errors, or
2) what the book claims are common errors, or
3) what general knowledge you have inferred from others' claim of error
or what.
Along the same lines, it's not clear what your bolded summaries are supposed to mean. What does, "the English are so very English" even mean? That they have English attribute X, where X is politeness, understatement, etc? That they're biased in favor of themselves? It doesn't get clearer by reading the passage.
Also, you give a few long lists in the middle of sentences which make it hard to follow to "get to the point", while not giving any information about the items in the list, as if there's some obvious inference I should be making just from the title of each item.
Finally, it's not clear what the general significance of your findings is, other than a chance for someone to get one specific book. It comes off as aimless and vague.
Sorry if I sound rude, but that's what I think.
Thank you for replying, but I was quite clear at every point on whether I was reporting things that are in the book, or my interpretation of them.
I disagree with the notion taught in English composition that every composition must have a "general significance". I find essays are often ruined, or at least needlessly lengthened, by the author trying to tie them up neatly, when what is usually of value to me is the separate pieces of data. I think what you object to is actually the un-vague way that it spends all its time listing specifics, rather than vaguely unifying and summarizing.
That's a Less Wrong rule, not one from English composition. And it doesn't mean you have to force-fit each point into supporting a central thesis, just that you should make clear what the signficance of your post is in the context of this site.
If each part were clear, I wouldn't have to rely on later passages to disambiguate meaning. See my example here.
(Okay, no the meta-talk has exceede the post length ... bad sign.)
Example:
This can be red as, "It is an error that English students learned a lot of history, because they mistakenly believe that pre-Llywelyn princes had the title Prince of Wales."
Is that what you meant?
If not, then you can understand why I would have to read further to get your meaning, but by then the post says: "The English are so very English. [Textbooks are biased in favor of the home country. That wouldn't be tolerated in England. In LLLLLL LLLLLLLLLLL LLLLLOOOOOO OOOOOOOOO OOOONNNN NNNNNNNG LIST, the book claims the English are unfairly blamed.]"
And that doesn't help much.
Your very long "LONG" is ugly and will likely screw up some people's rendering of the page.
I put some spaces in. Is it okay now? (It's supposed to be ugly to give the effect of having to skip across a long list to get to the sentence's predicate, but I don't want it messing up rendering.)
Yeah, it's good now.
That's a misinterpretation that hadn't occurred to me. Fixed.
He is giving his own summary/interpretation of the pamphlet. The things in the article are the takeway points that Phil came up with after reading "Common Errors in History". If you don't know what that is, please reread the first paragraph of the post.
I would have liked to see a link to the original mention/recommendation, or at least a little more context for the recommendation. "I bought a copy of Common Errors in History, which someone mentioned recently on LW." is not a very effective opening sentence for getting me to care about the ensuing post.
I couldn't find the original mention. It was in a discussion about Christopher Columbus and the common error of believing that people of his time believed the world was flat.
I'm inclined to think that if Google can't turn up the discussion using some searching for 'Columbus' or 'Common Errors in History' (as I've verified it does not appear to) then you may be mis-remembering the original source of the mention.
It didn't tell me anything useful. I pretty much only found out that there is a pamphlet called "Common Errors in History", which apparently isn't very good. You did make the "history is often oversimplified" point, which is a valuable one to remember, but that's the only useful point in the post. I'd rather have made the whole post be about that point.
I'd save reviews for works that are either good, or mediocre but have good sides that make them valuable for LW readers. I'm not sure why I should need to be told about a bad pamphlet, especially not one that has been out of print since 1945!
It's a fine pamphlet, for what it's supposed to do.
The other two points are mainly there for humor. (Though I do find it interesting how much more English students learned about history.)
To PhilGoetz: I've been looking for this pamphlet for two full days now, it's nowhere to be found online (I always surprise myself with just how shocking i find realising there are still things out there NOT on the internet..) and you mention here that we can send you our gmail if we were interested in the book, so YES please - i'm interested! (lindasharif@gmail.com) thank you!!!