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Poe's avatar

' Great writers usually take great care to achieve a kind of “mathematical finality” with their sentences. '

That was an excellent way to put it. English classes (literature and composition) that I used to take had a really good teacher who emphasized style. I wasn't taught where she got all those ideas about what would improve writing, such as avoiding adverbs and verb-forms of "to be" because those sentences tend to be less economical about what the writer meant to say. I don't follow all those rules now, obviously, but I remember how that opened up this whole new room of sort of thinking about writing language but mathematically.

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تبریزؔ • Tabrez • तबरेज़'s avatar

Robin, this is an idea I think about a lot for a very particular reason. I worship Nietzsche, so when I came across him saying this in BGE, I knew that I should do this; that books ought to be read aloud. But see, idk... The problem I face is that once I start reading a text alound, the comprehension part of my brain just, shuts down? I mean, my brain just decides to direct my mental capacities to enunciating instead of understanding. I often read texts, both fiction and theory, with friends and at that time I am reading it out aloud, but if an especially complicated part comes about I need to pause and read it silently to comprehend what it means. This just infuriates me...

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