[ExI] silly 'rules'

[William Flynn Wallace]

I'm saying one should limit oneself to trying to be like them in terms of
writing -- as of something is writing that unlike Hemingway (or unlike a
caricature of Hemingway) has missed the boat. (I'm not even getting into
the issue of different ages here.)

Regards,

Dan

There are pianists who you or even I have never heard of who can play
pieces that sound exactly like J
S Bach, Mozart, and others.  Some can make them up as they play.

So, why don't we know them?  You don't get credit for being a copycat.
bill w

On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 11:30 AM, Dan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sep 16, 2015, at 5:51 PM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf Of *Dan
> *…*
>
> >…Also, libertarians often use language as an example of a spontaneous
> order, where standardization arises (and alters) without the need of
> central planning. To wax Shakespearian: Why not cleave to that position?
> (To be sure, no one here is calling for enforcing standards of grammar,
> spelling, punctuation, or pronunciation at the point of a gun.;) Regards,
> Dan
>
>
>
> Cool post Dan, thanks.
>
>
>
> I am thinking about a couple things from what you said.  The reason why we
> tend to look to Shakespeare and other literary biggies as the basis for
> standardization is that these guys were so impressive in the way they
> stated things.  Wodehouse would take so little actual content and still
> somehow make you laugh just at the way he said things.  Steinbeck was
> another one: very simple language, sparse.  Hemmingway.  Consider the
> Hemmingway short story A Clean Well-Lighted Place, which is public domain
> now, so I pasted the whole story below.  Read it, it is very short.  Notice
> how that brilliant writer did all that with NOTHING.  There is no action,
> no conflict, nothing there.  But the story leaves a mental image that never
> goes away.  I first read this in high school, and I still get nada moments
> and shadows-of-leaves visions.
>
>
>
> His is a clean well-lighted story.  The whole thing can fit on one page if
> printed in normal font.  Each word is chosen carefully.  It is so well
> crafted, if you changed even one word, it would diminish the work of art.
> Now THIS is writing:
>
>
> It's a kind if writing -- not the only kind and not the best kind. On the
> latter, I'm not knocking it because I don't think there's one best kind.
>
> There's a tendency to confuse the way Hemingway and his myriad followers
> write with the correct way to write. There's also a tendency to not notice
> that Hemingway and some who are heavily influenced by him write pretty
> complicated and even long sentences. The opening paragraph of this story is
> an example, usually overlooked.
>
> By the way, I don't know anyone today who seriously uses Shakespeare as a
> basis for standardization. I think some who make that comment haven't
> actually done any deep reading of Shakespeare. A problem for using him as a
> standard is that he's idiosyncratic. But an even bigger one is that he
> mainly wrote in verse, which is hard to codify as a standard for either
> writing or speaking in prose.
>
> Like with grammar, etc., I would say the style of a piece has to match the
> goals of the piece and the writer -- and not follow the style of another
> work or author simply because that's judged to be superb. (There's a whole
> debate over what exactly style is too, though I imagine Anders will post on
> it.;) I'm not saying one can't learn from Shakespeare, Hemingway, etc. I'm
> saying one should limit oneself to trying to be like them in terms of
> writing -- as of something is writing that unlike Hemingway (or unlike a
> caricature of Hemingway) has missed the boat. (I'm not even getting into
> the issue of different ages here.)
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>  Sample my Kindle books via:
> http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
>
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>
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