a penguin of very little brain ([info]stephiepenguin) wrote,
@ 2008-04-25 14:24:00
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Entry tags:a miscellany

the plastic mountain at your feet
I have to review an article that contains the following sentence:

The exclusive focus on universal principles and strong negative obligations drew the spatio-temporally egalitarian interpretation of the kernel of the notion of sustainable development to the same preoccupation with the survival of the human species that characterises the apocalyptic views of radical environmentalists.



I have decided that using the words 'pretentious' and 'condescending' in my review are not completely inappropriate.

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[info]nixwilliams
2008-04-25 06:38 am UTC (link)
The author may or may not have a clear grasp of the topic. It is hard to tell given the grasp [s/he] so clearly lacks when it comes to the use of commas.

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[info]stephiepenguin
2008-04-25 12:03 pm UTC (link)
I read it aloud to Davyd, and I had to keep pausing in random places!

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[info]nixwilliams
2008-04-25 12:55 pm UTC (link)
it's almost like some bizarre, dadaist poetry.

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[info]jayabear
2008-04-25 07:24 am UTC (link)
"Verbose" as well, perhaps.

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[info]stephiepenguin
2008-04-25 12:04 pm UTC (link)
Hmm, nah, probably not in a technical review. Verbose is often considered a good thing.

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[info]jayabear
2008-04-25 12:06 pm UTC (link)
True. Also I read it to Mum and couldn't figure out where I was supposed to breathe, so the lack of punctuation is a problem.

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[info]stephbg
2008-04-25 12:22 pm UTC (link)
Not always!

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[info]stephbg
2008-04-25 07:27 am UTC (link)
I'm working on a tech writing presentation ATM and may just have to borrow this as a quote. You've also reminded me to add an "avoid emotional language" slide.

Language should be a privilege. Hmmmmm, story idea: docking vocabulary as a punishment for language abuse.

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[info]stephiepenguin
2008-04-25 12:05 pm UTC (link)
Seriously? do you want the citation for it?

Language should not be abused as a way to show off, for starters.

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[info]stephbg
2008-04-25 12:23 pm UTC (link)
Seriously, yes please.

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[info]stephiepenguin
2008-04-25 12:51 pm UTC (link)
Beekman, Volkert (2004), 'Sustainable development and future generations', Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 17 (1), 3-22. Page 12.

:o)

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[info]stephbg
2008-05-14 02:58 am UTC (link)
It's even better in uppercase red bold on an unmargined background of bright yellow, stretched across the page and fully justified :-) And with 0.75 line spacing just to hurt the eye a little more. I don't often get the chance to be quite so typographically evil :-)

Edited at 2008-05-14 02:58 am UTC

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[info]azhure
2008-04-25 07:53 am UTC (link)
That breaks my head.

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[info]stephiepenguin
2008-04-25 12:07 pm UTC (link)
I had to read it three or four times to understand it, and on my copy I have written "this sentence is ridiculous"

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[info]glvalentine
2008-04-25 01:15 pm UTC (link)
You know the writer read that over and was like, "Look at my restraint! There are four wholes words in the English language that I didn't use in this sentence! I'm so minimalist."

Then they ate a block of cheese shaped like themselves.

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[info]davyd
2008-04-26 11:06 am UTC (link)
Where do you buy those? Do you have to order them?

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Fighting fire with fire...
[info]rdmasters
2008-04-25 04:04 pm UTC (link)
I think the words "silly" and "self-indulgent" would also be suitable.

If you wanted to get into the spirit of things you could counter with "linguistic self-harm", or even "Internally motivated obfuscation of intrinsic conceptual constructions in conjunction with presupposed doctrinal filters result in considerable reduction of comprehensibility and efficaciousness of memetic transfer." (i.e. Talking stupid, and thinking you know better, makes it hard to get your point across.)

I think I now have to give my brain a good scrub.

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