Daniel_Humphries comments on Rationality and the English Language - Less Wrong

35 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 September 2007 10:55PM

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Comment author: Daniel_Humphries 14 September 2007 05:30:03AM 3 points [-]

Wonderful.

I am a writer and Orwell is my hero. I love to see him discussed, and I find there is never a time at which I couldn't use a refresher. "Politics and the English Language" is an all-time gem.

When you say "If you analyze words deliberatively, rephrasing propositions, trying out different meanings, searching for nuggets of truthiness, then you're losing track of the first impression", it's a bit confusing. It sounds like you are saying "Don't use stock phrases as interchangeable tokens in an attempt to construct something truthy-sounding," which I gather is your meaning, which Orwell would endorse, and which would be of a piece with the rest of this blog.

But it also sounds very close to saying, "A writer should write from the gut and not worry about rephrasing and editing because editing is phony," which is of course the opposite of what Orwell teaches. What the most romantic-minded writers call "from the gut" is very often nothing more than received wisdom that "feels" true because they have never really questioned it. A good writer, like you say, is always reevaluating his words and the ways they might be construed. He rephrases his prepostions not his propositons, if I may be so cheeky.