I think there’s well-founded criticism in here, but the opening chunk confuses bad copy-editing — ultimately in the hands of the publisher — with bad writing. Which, especially from someone who’s job requires a good understanding of how publishing works, is bad. Surely Brighton Grace has submitted a manuscript and gotten back copyedits? One badly edited book justifies labeling an entire generation?
Perhaps the most important clue is in the first paragraph: “one thing I can always rely on is being let down by a popular or acclaimed piece of contemporary art.”
It’s hard to be a contrarian unless you’re willing to go to some lengths to find something to be outraged about.
"none of these typos, with the exception of the jammed-together dialogue, prohibit access to meaning"
I hear that excuse constantly on the web if I try to correct people. And maybe it doesn't "prohibit access", but it does force me to think about things that aren't the point of the message, in order to figure out the point of the message.
I've given up correcting people. I'm old enough now that it's time to just watch people's choices come back on them. The whole world will pay for it, and I've done what I can.
I can't even get people to stop using "weary" to mean "wary". That's a whole different meaning, and there are so many people that use it wrong.
> I can't even get people to stop using "weary" to mean "wary"
Interesting, I don't recall seeing that one before. Do you think people are mentally just adding a 'y' to the word 'wear' (and still pronouncing it in their head like 'wary') -- or do you think they are thinking of it as the real word 'weary' (having the long 'e' sound like the word 'weep')?
i don't know how much of it has been thrown out/superceded, but Thinking Fast and Slow would suggest it actually makes you slow down to think about the material, rather than jumping past.
"Force you to think" as long as the meaning isnt changed, isnt a bad thing
It is when the forcing results from negligence rather than deliberation. In those cases, you're not being confronted with an alien, difficult, or profound concept? You're being given a broken version of a boringly ordinary concept, and wasting your brainpower on papering over an orthographic or grammatical crack that should have been cleaned up by the author, or the editor, or one of the test readers.
In these cases, you're not thinking about the material; you're thinking about carelessly it's been put together, and how little regard the author appears to have for the audience.
Not sure about that. I mean, you misspelled “superseded” and this prompted me to take some time to write this reply. Maybe I will remember your point better for so doing, but is it really the best way to reflect on the topic?
Eh, "modern people problems", kinda like first world problems.
Language has always been a localization of mispronounced and misspelled words. Just think about every word for an item but is just very slightly different across languages. The more modern age (lets say somewhere between the printing press and now) is exceptional as different languages and dialects have absolutely collapsed. Local dialects became regional and mixed. In smaller countries regional dialects became national. In big countries like the US meme words spread quickly across the nation because of things like radio, TV, and now internet.
You were living an a massively privileged position in time and you didn't realize it.
So we shouldn’t worry about regressing? This is also true of science, hygiene, human rights, and about a dozen other things we would be alarmed to lose, even if they were only around for people living in a “massively privileged position in time”
Languages evolve. Words are borrowed from other languages, their meanings change, and so do their spellings.
"Entrée" refers to the starter in French, whereas in the US, it refers to the main dish.
"A date" in the sense of a romantic encounter, originates from the English use of "date" in the sense of a calendar date. The word was then borrowed back into French, this time with its English meaning (and is pronounced the same way as in English).
"Connoisseur" is spelled "connaisseur" in modern French, while English kept the old spelling.
"Con" used to be a vulgar term for the vagina in French. Today, it is mainly used as an insult to describe someone as stupid.
I don't think the difference is in the writers so much, as in the publishers. If you look at manuscripts by famous writers they're often full of typos. And if you look at old correspondence between writers and their publishers there are often discussions of continuity errors and the like.
These days lots of books are self published. And even the big publishers spend less money + time on this kind of thing.
I think I agree, it's not just literature only, it includes our day to day conversation as well especially when it's not your native language. I noticed for myself as well.
I started my undergraduate years intent on the study of English literature. I dreamed of libraries and professorships. Then I met a hoard of useless people like the author of this rage bait and quickly pivoted to computer engineering.
The best fully-human writers of the next generation will be those who are very conscientious at grammar class and master all the rules, because by breaking them, they'll be able to push their prose to the most remote and unlikely locales in the geodesics of LLM-next-token-prediction-probability space. Such places where the Machines deign not trudge.
They're talking about written communication, not literature. Literature is written communication that endures, has meaning, is canonical. Writing, even if published on paper, prose or poetry, isn't literature automatically. It can become literature if it's of high quality and provokes thought, communicates important ideas, captures ephemera. Eventually.
The straitjacketed "correctness" that's policemongered by dictionaries and spell-checkers, is a sandbrained illusion. Make more typos; nurture neologisms; disregard dignity. It's a ratp.
tldr; nobody pays for editors and more than automated proofreading anymore for any form of printed matter.
Used to be worthwile that unintentional ambiguities and errors can be cleared up or left in, when at least a second pair of eyes goes over a text. This should help the reader not take anything away from the authors intent.
> The Trees makes some extremely questionable decisions that I see as “macro typos” — thematic and stylistic mistakes made in haste that alter the appearance and feel of the entire text — which deflate its satirical power and social utility.
Defining "The author made creative choices I didn't like" as a typo is an impressively bold move.
I would like to posit that as grammar dies, we execute the apostrophe first. Somehow, despite the simple rule of “this is never EVER used to show plurality”, it is almost exclusively used for that these days.
Again! Another website that annoys visitors
with slide-in widgets click-to-continue. So,
my perma-ban list of websites grows. Now I need
to find an extension to block websites that use
those slide-ins ...
I think there’s well-founded criticism in here, but the opening chunk confuses bad copy-editing — ultimately in the hands of the publisher — with bad writing. Which, especially from someone who’s job requires a good understanding of how publishing works, is bad. Surely Brighton Grace has submitted a manuscript and gotten back copyedits? One badly edited book justifies labeling an entire generation?
Perhaps the most important clue is in the first paragraph: “one thing I can always rely on is being let down by a popular or acclaimed piece of contemporary art.”
It’s hard to be a contrarian unless you’re willing to go to some lengths to find something to be outraged about.
"none of these typos, with the exception of the jammed-together dialogue, prohibit access to meaning"
I hear that excuse constantly on the web if I try to correct people. And maybe it doesn't "prohibit access", but it does force me to think about things that aren't the point of the message, in order to figure out the point of the message.
I've given up correcting people. I'm old enough now that it's time to just watch people's choices come back on them. The whole world will pay for it, and I've done what I can.
I can't even get people to stop using "weary" to mean "wary". That's a whole different meaning, and there are so many people that use it wrong.
> I've given up correcting people.
I have a working theory that the prevalence of typos has been increasing in recent years, and it's on purpose:
* Humans trying to distinguish themselves from bots might add intentional typos to convey this
* AI bots, armed with the above knowledge, will also use this trick to seem more human
Of course, many typos are genuine, but this is increasingly not the case imo.
> I can't even get people to stop using "weary" to mean "wary"
Interesting, I don't recall seeing that one before. Do you think people are mentally just adding a 'y' to the word 'wear' (and still pronouncing it in their head like 'wary') -- or do you think they are thinking of it as the real word 'weary' (having the long 'e' sound like the word 'weep')?
i don't know how much of it has been thrown out/superceded, but Thinking Fast and Slow would suggest it actually makes you slow down to think about the material, rather than jumping past.
"Force you to think" as long as the meaning isnt changed, isnt a bad thing
It is when the forcing results from negligence rather than deliberation. In those cases, you're not being confronted with an alien, difficult, or profound concept? You're being given a broken version of a boringly ordinary concept, and wasting your brainpower on papering over an orthographic or grammatical crack that should have been cleaned up by the author, or the editor, or one of the test readers.
In these cases, you're not thinking about the material; you're thinking about carelessly it's been put together, and how little regard the author appears to have for the audience.
The piece makes the point that a novel is about immersion in the text. Slowing down to think about the material is the opposite of the goal
Not sure about that. I mean, you misspelled “superseded” and this prompted me to take some time to write this reply. Maybe I will remember your point better for so doing, but is it really the best way to reflect on the topic?
Eh, "modern people problems", kinda like first world problems.
Language has always been a localization of mispronounced and misspelled words. Just think about every word for an item but is just very slightly different across languages. The more modern age (lets say somewhere between the printing press and now) is exceptional as different languages and dialects have absolutely collapsed. Local dialects became regional and mixed. In smaller countries regional dialects became national. In big countries like the US meme words spread quickly across the nation because of things like radio, TV, and now internet.
You were living an a massively privileged position in time and you didn't realize it.
Look, i make typos all the time, from juxtaposing letters to omitting words, but I don't assign cultural significance to them.
So we shouldn’t worry about regressing? This is also true of science, hygiene, human rights, and about a dozen other things we would be alarmed to lose, even if they were only around for people living in a “massively privileged position in time”
Languages evolve. Words are borrowed from other languages, their meanings change, and so do their spellings.
"Entrée" refers to the starter in French, whereas in the US, it refers to the main dish.
"A date" in the sense of a romantic encounter, originates from the English use of "date" in the sense of a calendar date. The word was then borrowed back into French, this time with its English meaning (and is pronounced the same way as in English).
"Connoisseur" is spelled "connaisseur" in modern French, while English kept the old spelling.
"Con" used to be a vulgar term for the vagina in French. Today, it is mainly used as an insult to describe someone as stupid.
It concerns me though when a programmer “could care less” about the difference between an expression and its negation.
I don't think the difference is in the writers so much, as in the publishers. If you look at manuscripts by famous writers they're often full of typos. And if you look at old correspondence between writers and their publishers there are often discussions of continuity errors and the like.
These days lots of books are self published. And even the big publishers spend less money + time on this kind of thing.
I think I agree, it's not just literature only, it includes our day to day conversation as well especially when it's not your native language. I noticed for myself as well.
I started my undergraduate years intent on the study of English literature. I dreamed of libraries and professorships. Then I met a hoard of useless people like the author of this rage bait and quickly pivoted to computer engineering.
It's LLM-allergies.
The best fully-human writers of the next generation will be those who are very conscientious at grammar class and master all the rules, because by breaking them, they'll be able to push their prose to the most remote and unlikely locales in the geodesics of LLM-next-token-prediction-probability space. Such places where the Machines deign not trudge.
I'd argue that human prose can still exceed that of LLMs in clarity and simplicity.
This will always be appreciated regardless of any stylistic shibboleths indicating human authorship.
They're talking about written communication, not literature. Literature is written communication that endures, has meaning, is canonical. Writing, even if published on paper, prose or poetry, isn't literature automatically. It can become literature if it's of high quality and provokes thought, communicates important ideas, captures ephemera. Eventually.
The straitjacketed "correctness" that's policemongered by dictionaries and spell-checkers, is a sandbrained illusion. Make more typos; nurture neologisms; disregard dignity. It's a ratp.
From the book author's bio: "PERCIVAL EVERETT is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC"
tldr; nobody pays for editors and more than automated proofreading anymore for any form of printed matter. Used to be worthwile that unintentional ambiguities and errors can be cleared up or left in, when at least a second pair of eyes goes over a text. This should help the reader not take anything away from the authors intent.
> The Trees makes some extremely questionable decisions that I see as “macro typos” — thematic and stylistic mistakes made in haste that alter the appearance and feel of the entire text — which deflate its satirical power and social utility.
Defining "The author made creative choices I didn't like" as a typo is an impressively bold move.
People who say "up" or "upped" instead of "rise" or "raise" or "rose". Straight to jail.
and omg people that type without capitializing anything wtf i hate them
I would like to posit that as grammar dies, we execute the apostrophe first. Somehow, despite the simple rule of “this is never EVER used to show plurality”, it is almost exclusively used for that these days.
The apostrophe is used to form the plural of lowercase letters, sometimes single numbers, and mixed-case acronyms.
The loss of the distinction between lose and loose is killing me though.
My hottest take of the era: LLM voice is perfect grammar and spelling. What’s going to damage Literature?
> What’s going to damage Literature?
Probably LLMs.
2brnt2bthtisth?
Man the irony of this piece. I think I'll have Gemini translate it into modern English because I was really interested in the subject. (ouvre?)
> the same story (with an identically worded bulletin)
Well....
https://youtu.be/ksb3KD6DfSI
Again! Another website that annoys visitors with slide-in widgets click-to-continue. So, my perma-ban list of websites grows. Now I need to find an extension to block websites that use those slide-ins ...
Use uMatrix. Allow all 1st-party except scripts. Allow substackcdn.com's CSS and images. Block everything else. Problem solved.
Can't you just use reader mode like everyone else?