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kalium comments on Rationality Quotes October 2013 - Less Wrong
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This use of bold lettering to show spoken emphasis is nonstandard in most contexts, but it is standard in comics and I would kind of like to see it come into broader use.
(Also:
s/contients/continents/.)It is, in fact, from comics. Another nonstandard habit is the frequent use of italics I've picked up from Eliezer Yudkowsky, along with other writing habits that would be qualified as "passionate" by some and "histrionic" by others. I myself find it quite practical in properly conveying emotional intensity.
There's only a certain amount of emphasis to go around. The more things you italicize, the less important each italicized word seems, and then when something's really important it doesn't stand out. It's like swearing---if I swear every time I spill a glass of water, then it loses its effect and when I drop a hammer on my toe there is nothing I can think of that will express the strength of my feelings.
In comics, the difference in weight between bold and standard is much less than in typical fonts. I think it works well in comics but here it makes me read things out of order in a distracting way.
I keep trying to tell my mom exactly this, every time we need to design some kind of print materials for the family business. She just doesn't get that emphasis is about the relative share of a reader's attention to different parts within a text, a positional good of sorts.
Oh, I keep getting that argument and I disagree completely. Swearing does not add nor substract emphasis; it is punctuation, placeholder words that might as well be onomatopeias. For an example of a character who swears constantly and still manages to highlight quite well differences in emotional intensity, I would suggest you look at Malcolm Tucker from british political satire The Thick Of It. For another who never swears yet also conveys utter fury, anger, frustration, pain, and so on impeccably, I would suggest having a look at any of the latest Doctors from Doctor Who. An angry David Tennant is a frightening frightening sight to behold. In the case of the hammer on your toe, I believe a heartfelt ARGH! does the trick nicely, with an extra hiss afterwards is you feel like it.
I personally find that part of the relief from swearing comes from breaking a taboo, and that this weakens over time. But perhaps watching The Thick Of It will reveal to me a more sustainable way.
As for italics, in the limit case where everything is in italics you surely would not conclude that THE WHOLE THING IS EXTRA SUPER IMPORTANT. So there's some crossover point; we just disagree on where it is. I believe my view is common at least for more formal (book-type) writing.
You don't need to study the entire population to extrapolate a result. Here's a [ http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/TheThickOfIt ]representative sample .
I suppose this is scoped to the statement "if I swear every time I spill a glass of water, then it loses its effect and when I drop a hammer on my toe there is nothing I can think of that will express the strength of my feelings?"
Because the overall point that emphasis must be conserved stands quite well.
Not really. Watch any opera or musical, listen to any speech; there's enough emphasis around to go on for hours and days, as long as you keep it varied and well-executed.
Heck, just marathon Gurren Lagann and tell me when you actually think the emphasis wears thin. My bet is, never.
In all of your examples, there are down times. Even Lagann.
I never said there never need to be any down times, I said there was no such thing as conservation of emphasis. Even in Lagann, the down times were tense, emotional affairs; at their lightest, they were deeply contemplative; that is hardly a lack of intensity.
On second thoughts, there is no particular minimum to emphasis, so it clearly isn't conserved. There is an issue of diminishing returns.
Phrased that way, I have to agree. Of course, diminishing returns can be streched with proper technique, but they are there nonetheless.
Well before the time skip, and the last episodes were just plain irritating.
That is an unusual perspective. The only parts that are left are the parts most people complain about. Nia's Awakening and the Deep Space arcs.
At least for my own speech, profanity is primarily a way to add emphasis. This seems to also be true for a significant fraction of the people I've known.
Of course, profanity is not the only available source of emphasis. There are still lots of ways to convey emphasis with the level of profanity held constant.
There's absolute emphasis ("Listen up, because I will only say this once" draws extra attention to the entire statement that follows), and relative emphasis (the word "constantly" in "...a character who swears constantly and still..." is emphasized more than its neighbors, regardless of the level of passion it is read with). You can get someone to pay more attention in general, but attention paid to one thing is still attention not paid to something else.
Is there some research that investigates the effect in a more detailed fashion?