A recent Works in Progress post by Henry Oliver is far too long and repetitious (ironically, because his subject is style in English), but it has some useful thoughts and examples; if you’re good at skimming it might be worth taking a look at. (Warning: he quotes William Rees-Mogg approvingly. But then he quotes Helen de Witt approvingly, which redeems him to some extent.) This is the nub of it:
From Hemingway’s legion of admirers, to Grammarly, to countless books and internet memes about writing well, the idea that shorter sentences are better is dominant. Many people go further, arguing that one of the most important changes in English over time is its sentences getting shorter. […]
I propose a different story. The great shift in English prose took place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, probably driven by the increasing use of writing in commercial contexts, and by the style of English in post-Reformation Christianity. It consisted in two things: a ‘plain style’ and logical syntax. A second, smaller shift has taken place in modern times, in which written English came to be modeled more closely on spoken English.
Nothing earthshaking, but worth thinking about. (Via chavenet’s MeFi post.)
That some English became easier to read may seem true if you feature Hemingway. Not Faulkner. And density may vary with clear or opaque terms. Sentence length variation might be worth attention.
William Rees-Mogg was often worth paying attention to, unlike his son Jacob, an almost entirely synthetic person. In the days of Rees-Mogg Senior’s editorship, the Times was still a serious newspaper.
The article defeated my powers of concentration. It either confuses paratactic style with simplicity, or points out the error of doing so, but my eyes glazed over before I could be sure which.
Kusaal narrative typically features extremely long sequences of clauses linked by ka “and”, in which all clauses but the first lack the tonal and segmental markers of an independent clause, and also lack independent tense marking. Accordingly, you could call such sequences single “compound sentences” if you thought school English grammar was a good guide to anything much at all. No great actual complexity is evident in such constructions, however. (On the contrary: the stripping out of superfluous tense-marking is a simplification.)
“ I have, it is true, taken a view of his character different in some respects from that of Gibbon or Sismondi. But it is a view, in all its main features, which I believe (and think I could prove) myself to be warranted in taking, not less by the facts of History than the laws of Fiction. In the meanwhile, as I have given the facts from which I have drawn my interpretation of the principal agent, the reader has sufficient data for his own judgment.”
Redolent of ‘a dark and stormy night’? Lord Lytton was at it again. None of this short, staccato phrasing.
Oliver seems to be rather cherry-picking by claiming a sharp contrast between Coverdale’s translation of the Psalms and the KJV translators of Genesis 80 years later. I mean, there’s a KJV version of the Psalms which is not “plainer” in style than Coverdale’s and arguably moves in the other direction. And while Coverdale didn’t do his own translation of Genesis-as-such, he did some other prose bits of the OT that could be directly compared to the KJV handling of the same bits. You can find in the first century after the Reformation (and the century after that, and the century after that) both “plain” style and “ornate” style in Anglophone religious writing, depending on where you look. You can’t just claim via handwaving that one of those is typical of its time and the other isn’t.
“Dr. Alan Garber, president of Harvard, disagrees with President Trump about many things. He is fighting Mr. Trump as the federal government tries to strip Harvard of billions of dollars in research funding and its nonprofit tax status.”
This reads to me almost as a pastiche of parallelism
President Trump | President Garber
Garber fights Trump | (Trump’s) federal government attacks (Garber’s) Harvard.
The author must realise he is not Homer and Garber v Trump is not Achilles v Hector (or if one prefers, Odysseus v Polyphemus). The whole thing could then be simplified, not as Henry Oliver disingenuously suggests, destroying the parallelism, but e.g., as follows:
“Harvard President Alan Garber [lose the Dr title, big guy!] disagrees with President Trump about many things. The federal government is trying to strip Harvard of…funding…tax status. Garber is fighting back against Trump.”
Hey, Dr. Garber didn’t spend X years in Evil Medical School PLUS Y years (mostly concurrently) in Evil Economics Grad School to be called Mr.!
Medics with degrees in economics are a bad lot, though not as bad as those with MBAs (obviously.)
Ah, but how about economists with degrees in medicine?
PP, “Dr. Alan Garber, president of Harvard, disagrees with President Trump about many things.” implies for me that there is a “but” coming somewhere. But your rewrite doesn’t.
Dropping “Dr.” what would be fun in that? Because the gentleman in question has two real and quite distinct doctorates (unlike having Ph.D. in physics and in music theory, for example), he definitely should be referred as “Dr. Dr.” on all occasions.
In the UK, it’s not quite the thing to call yourself “Dr” if you have an actual doctorate (UK medics normally don’t have doctorates, so they’re allowed to. Unless they’re surgeons, who disdain such things.)
George Mikes’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mikes
useful How to be an Alien explains this point. He says that if you call yourself “doctor” in Britain (and are not a physician) people will know that it just means that you are a Central European.
It’s also noteworthy that books which give the author’s name as (say) “Homer Rodeheaver, PhD” (or indeed, MD) on the cover/title page are invariably works of pseudoscience.
Oliver seems to be rather cherry-picking
Yes, he does that a lot.
Ah, but how about economists with degrees in medicine?
That’s the stealth version. It just means that they are duplicitous as well as evil.
Coincidentally I just posted a comment about this exasperatingly clueless piece on the MeFi thread.
Garber should use they/them pronouns whose antecedents are his doctorates.
As a counterexample to what (I think) Oliver is saying, I offer Henry James. Portrait of a Lady (1881) is a very good book and not at all difficult to read. Washington Square (1880) is a slighter novel, but likewise plainly readable. On the other hand, I have made three or four attempts to read The Wings of the Dove (1902), and it has defeated me every time. I get halfway through one of James’s tortuous sentences and find that I have forgotten where it began and can no longer untangle the syntax. After a while, I am making an act of reading, but the words pass in front of my eyes without any sensible meaning traveling into my brain.
Coincidentally I just posted a comment about this exasperatingly clueless piece on the MeFi thread.
And an excellent comment it is; I encourage everyone to read it.
It is, and I like the signature too.
The thing that strikes me is that Oliver doesn’t know what a histogram is. A small point, perhaps, even a trivial one, but I think not. If you use a technical term from a field you know little about (statistics, in this case) you need to use it correctly if you don’t want to be seen as a pretentious fool.
When I was in high school, doing summer research at the Oregon State University Radiation Center, at a group meeting there was an interesting discussion between the group’s PI and the new postdoc about the precise meaning of histogram. The question at issue was whether you could have a two-dimensional histogram, with the number of counts indicated by color, rather than a one-dimensional bar or scatter plot.
“𝐴 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑, 𝑠𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑟 𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑓𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠, 𝑖𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝐸𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑖𝑠ℎ 𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑜𝑛 𝑠𝑝𝑜𝑘𝑒𝑛 𝐸𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑖𝑠ℎ.”
The beauty of written English is its permanence, its depth, and its indulgence in aesthetic language.
𝑉𝑒𝑟𝑏𝑎 𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑡, 𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑝𝑡𝑎 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑛𝑡. I’ve noticed that a majority of today’s novelists write in a rather formulaic style, making their writing less distinctive and identifiable as the writers of the past. Hemingway’s style of writing is identifiable as is Steinbeck’s or Faulkner’s and many more writers of that era and before. One could distinguish their disparate styles.
“𝑌𝑒𝑠, 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝐼, 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑏𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑖𝑠 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑘𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑏𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑜𝑟’𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑦 ℎ𝑖𝑚𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓. 𝐼𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑠𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑐𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑠 𝑚𝑒, 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑑! 𝐻𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡; 𝑏𝑢𝑡 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑒, ℎ𝑜𝑤 ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒! 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑜𝑓 𝑖𝑡. 𝑂𝑓 𝑎 𝑆𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑦, 𝑊𝑎𝑙𝑙-𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑠 𝑃𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑎; 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠. 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑏𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝑡𝑜𝑜, 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑜𝑓 𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑘-𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒, 𝑎𝑡 𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑓𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑒𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑒𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑟 𝑣𝑎𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑦, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑆𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑜𝑟𝑛. 𝐴𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑏𝑦 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠 ℎ𝑖𝑠 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒; 𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟, 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑜𝑢𝑠—𝑎 𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑑 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑢𝑠 𝑏𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑢𝑖𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝐶𝑎𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑔𝑒!
𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑎 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑠𝑒𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑒. 𝐵𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒, 𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑎 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑢𝑛𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑎𝑑𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑜𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑜𝑛 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑤 𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑚. 𝐴 𝑓𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑦! 𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑏𝑜𝑡ℎ 𝐼 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑏𝑦 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝐴𝑑𝑎𝑚. 𝐼 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑠𝑖𝑙𝑘𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑠 𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑑𝑎𝑦, 𝑖𝑛 𝑔𝑎𝑙𝑎 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑚, 𝑠𝑤𝑎𝑛-𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑝𝑝𝑖 𝑜𝑓 𝐵𝑟𝑜𝑎𝑑𝑤𝑎𝑦; 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐼 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑝𝑦𝑖𝑠𝑡, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓, 𝐴ℎ, ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑡𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡, 𝑠𝑜 𝑤𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝑔𝑎𝑦; 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑦 ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑓, 𝑠𝑜 𝑤𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑛𝑒.”
Herman Melville’s 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑏𝑦, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟 is an example of written English that should not be modeled more closely to spoken. If one were to revise and abridge Melville’s aesthetic prose to modern language one would lose the emotional depth and poetic essence of his literature.
there are quite a few contemporary writers – i’m thinking of shola von reinhold, sibyl lamb, toni cade bambara, and ishmael reed among others – who have extremely distinct styles that are, overall, much closer to melville than, say, mailer, but would be impossible without very deliberate modeling on spoken englishes. and i can testify, as i’m sure many here can, that once you*’ve read anything starting to approach proportionally as much from a “golden age” as you have from your own times, you come to know and be bored by its formulaic styles just as much as the ones currently holding sway.
.
* i did have to think about whether i wanted to use “one”, and decided it would feel almost rude or snippish.
I have seen examples of 19th century English that would sound fine in Russian if you translate them word-by word. Such examples are almost shocking for me because modern English is full of constructions unlike anything in Russian or constrcuations that can be, in principle, translated literally but will sound horrible (say, many gerunds).
Perhaps both Russian and such English have been inflenced by French prose.
And phrasal verbs, those are used more generously today. I’m not sure about spoken English*, but modern English is independent of “literary European” (conversely, “literary European” depends on English more and more).
*of course everything which is (a) more or less common in 19th-century English and (b) uncommon for then prose must be (c) common for then speech, else how can it be “more or less common”?
@jean-Antoine
I believe the second paragraph from Melville illustrates your point better. In the first paragraph, I think only evident => clear jumps out. The author cannot replace solitude with loneliness or vacancy with emptiness, because the “simpler” words have already been used recently. Maybe a modern author would lose the allusions to Petra and Carthage.
I think as well that, apart from vocabulary and allusions, older texts contain more sentences requiring multiple breaths to read aloud; Melville does this twice in the quoted paragraphs. Here is a well-known and rather structurally simpler example from another 19C author:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
@rozele
“[ 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑓𝑦, 𝑎𝑠 𝑖’𝑚 𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑦 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑛, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢*’𝑣𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑠 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑎 “𝑔𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑔𝑒” 𝑎𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠, 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑒 𝑏𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑐 𝑠𝑡𝑦𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑠 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑙𝑦 ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑤𝑎𝑦.”
I was referring to modern literature that came to be modeled more closely to spoken English. I agree that in every era there is a certain formula of style to written novels; that is almost inescapable. However, classical literature three to four hundred years ago used more sophisticated vocabulary, complex sentences, and formal structures. Many of today’s novels exist for the story, similar to a movie in print, whereas, in the past they existed for the language; where the beauty of the book lies in the words.
“𝐴 𝑛𝑒𝑤 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 ℎ𝑖𝑚, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑠 𝑦𝑒𝑡 ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑔𝑢𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑜𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘.
𝑆𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑓-ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑡ℎ. 𝐸𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟, 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑖𝑛 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡.”
Those three sentences are from a book by 𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐞 𝐒. 𝐒𝐰𝐚𝐧, a prolific 19th-20th century novelist, considered a commercial author of her time.
It’s an example of the aesthetics of writing at that time; a more ornate style of writing, focused on linguistic artistry, which is considered flowery and excessive to contemporary readers.
“* 𝑖 𝑑𝑖𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑖 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑢𝑠𝑒 “𝑜𝑛𝑒”, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑡 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑎𝑙𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑟𝑢𝑑𝑒 𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑛𝑖𝑝𝑝𝑖𝑠ℎ.”
I’m certain that you’re alluding to my use of the impersonal pronoun “one” rather than the primarily personal “you”. It’s my preference and how I was educated; I’d rather address a person in general rather than the reader. The fact that you decided it would feel almost rude or snippish if you used it is your preference, but I’ll refrain from making an indirect criticism on your preference.
@jean-antoine
I think some of what you are referring to is related to the modern possibility of film adaptations, providing an additional source of income. Authors may subconsciously tailor their prose to make it more adaptable (shorter build up, less complexity, more contrast, crisper dialogue). A lot of modern novels where the prose mirrors spoken rhythms would probably have to be heavily adapted for the cinema (or “faithful” treatments would result in unwatchable films).
However, classical literature three to four hundred years ago used more sophisticated vocabulary, complex sentences, and formal structures. Many of today’s novels exist for the story, similar to a movie in print, whereas, in the past they existed for the language; where the beauty of the book lies in the words.
Note the rhetorical sleight of hand here. If rewritten for accuracy, it would lose all its force:
You’re disingenously pretending the division is temporal, whereas in fact it’s always been there. (If you don’t think there are plenty of complex, eloquent novels written and published today, you need to get out more.)
Jean-Antoine: I’m certain that you’re alluding to my use of the impersonal pronoun “one” rather than the primarily personal “you”. It’s my preference and how I was educated; I’d rather address a person in general rather than the reader. The fact that you decided it would feel almost rude or snippish if you used it is your preference, but I’ll refrain from making an indirect criticism on your preference.
You’re almost certainly wrong about that, actually. It appears that rozele messed up the hyperlink, but I presume it was supposed to point to this discussion going on simultaneously in another comment thread. (“All threads are one.”)
Books are much cheaper today, and people read many more of them. And I think readers expect to spend less time (per a word) with each. Also the market is more competetive.
I complained here at how some 3 or 4 years ago it occured to me that interesting developments in Russian science fiction and fantasy must happen in the Internet rather than on paper, how I went to search for those “developments” and how I found them.
Namely a successful commercialisation scheme fed by advertising that made thousands of people write (and sell) rather horrible books (and millions others read them). What makes them “horrible” for me is firstly that the list of schemes and elements of their respective “genres” reproduced in each is so detailed that I hesitate to call it “genres”. Secondly, speed of your writing gives you strong competetive advantage.
Not only you sell more if you write more chapters a week, each chapter (books are uploaded chapter-by chapter) is going to have more readers, because readers hate to wait. The language too is horrible from the perspective of a school teacher, but while the language of girls who write in boyish “genres” is usually Much, Much better this doesn’t seem to give them any advantage. (Girls have their own genres, which I haven’t checked).
The way this literature is gendered – “boyish” and “girlish” chracteristics are exaggerated – is also unusual. Преувеличенные половые признаки, I’d have said in Russian using a phrase “sexual characteristics” that refers to penises and beards and breasts.
___
This all is interesting, you can see how certain technicalities (advertising, competetiveness) change genres and contents. But similar changes of technicalities happen in the paper book market too.
Also this all reminds me about the old argument that artists need to eat something. Of course. But those artists who will have something to eat once you have such a successful market are different artists.
“All threads are you.”
Things like Minnie Mouse’s bow have been called “tertiary sexual characteristics”.
Cartoon creatures don’t have primary sexual characteristics, which may complicate the counting.
As is known, even in hentai they blur or replace them with tentacles:)
Gender, then:)
In Russia половые признаки, primary and secondary, are taught in school, but I don’t hear the phrase in English, and not sure how widely it’s recognised.
Given the progression from functional penises to decorative beards I think and vaguely remember that extension to dress occured to me when I was a child. But if the motivation for calling them ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ is chronological, that won’t work, they wrap a ribbon, blue or pink, arond you as soon as they can. One can wonder why they don’t do it with pregnant women’s bellies.
My ex-wife and I used to compete playing a hentai pachinko video game, in which the girls who undressed as one earned points were completely anatomically “correct.”
It was the article about tentacle porn in WP that told that the genre has grown up because genitals aren’t allowed. I’m sure that’s not the only cultural reason, but I was amused by the idea of practicing modesty by having sex with tentacles.
“Tentacle sex” erotica in Japanese culture is pretty old.
thank you for the catch, Brett! you are right; i mangled the link…
@Languagehat
“𝑌𝑜𝑢’𝑟𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑙𝑦[sic] 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑙, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒. (𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑥, 𝑒𝑙𝑜𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑠 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜𝑑𝑎𝑦, 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒.)”
My comment was presented as a generalization; there was no intention, or need, to pretend the division is temporal, because I think it is. I understand that my comment came across as a general statement of fact, but I would have been more accurate to write: “However, many literary critics have argued that classical literature three to four hundred years ago used more sophisticated vocabulary, complex sentences, and formal structures.”
Modern and contemporary authors don’t write in the style of Melville, Hawthorne, Dickens, Smollett et al.. Their language is considered too flowery, too wordy, and for some too pretentious. Nevertheless, they’re considered literary giants and their works remain highly relevant. Naturally, many complex and eloquent novels are written today, but my point is about the aesthetics of classical literature, specifically 17th–19th century prose, which reflects a real temporal stylistic divide. If contemporary writers wrote in the style of Melville or Hawthorne they would undoubtedly struggle in mainstream commercial publishing, or perhaps be persuaded to modernize diction and pacing. The prose styles of the Romantic and Victorian periods are in sharp contrast to most contemporary authors.
From William Godwin’s 𝐶𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑏 𝑊𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑚𝑠: “𝑇ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑀𝑟. 𝐹𝑎𝑙𝑘𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒𝑥𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑒. 𝐼 𝑑𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝐼 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑛𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒 ℎ𝑖𝑚 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡, 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑡 𝑢𝑝𝑜𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑖𝑚 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑑.”
His use of abstract nouns, ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦, is rare in modern prose. It’s a symmetrical abstraction that modern English tends to avoid; it also sounds stiff or self conscious and his vocabulary seems pompous and formal.
A modern writer might say: “Mr. Falkland’s hostility made me hostile toward him.”
Your response to my comment focuses on a punctilio rather than the substance of the argument. By way of comparison: if I were to say that people today dress more casually, and often more frumpily, than they did in the 1940s and 1950s, that statement would reasonably be treated as a fact. While exceptions obviously exist, they are just that, exceptions. One need only look at photographs of people boarding airplanes in the 1950s: men in suits, women in dresses.
@ja
Remember the immaculate underclothing (not visible in the photographs). These people thought they were going to die, and they did not want strangers handling their corpses to see that they wore socks with holes.
Modern and contemporary authors don’t write in the style of Melville, Hawthorne, Dickens, Smollett et al..
If you mean literally “in the style of,” then of course not; why would anyone write “in the style of Melville” when Melville has been there and done that? It could only be a pastiche. If you mean write in similarly complex prose, you’re simply wrong. But there’s no point giving you examples, because if you cared, you’d already know about them. You’re just a standard-issue laudator temporis acti, justifying your love of the past by pretending the present can’t possibly measure up. I’ve seen a lot of them here and elsewhere, and I don’t waste time either trying to refute them or assailing them. If you enjoy past literature, great, enjoy it in good health! If you feel you have to pretend there’s been some massive change that justifies your not trying to engage with difficult contemporary literature, fine, go ahead! You’re missing out, but hey, we all miss out on almost everything. So keep calm and carry on, as they say.
It’s not that simple, because suits and dresses were everyday clothing for everyone (at least if you go back far enough; I’m not sure about the 50s specifically). Nowadays, a suit jacket with patched elbows is pretty much a contradiction in terms, but back then it was just a jacket. There are 19th-century photos of very poor people wearing very shabby three-piece suits; shabby suits pretty much don’t exist anymore, because suits have retreated to the… formal register of the culture.
use of abstract nouns … is rare in modern prose.
First three lines I picked at random from a book on Kindle:
Said to have been written in 1972, but internal evidence shows clearly that it must date from the nineteenth century at the latest.
“people today dress more casually”
Jean-Antoine, a half of people of my country (Russia) were villagers, and a half of urbanites were factory workers. Much of the time they were dressed very casually, but they would not go to a public place dressed like this.
On the other hand, I don’t even own a suit, and while I’m curious what I would look like in it (preferably made by a tailor accroding to my own taste or even design) that is, not totally hostile to it, if it is required somewhere, my first reaction is going to be “let’s don’t go there”. I’m also confident that once I buy one, soon it will be torn, burned and there will be holes on the elbows and bubbles on knees (I know myself, if I like an article of clothing then I wear it while, for example, hiking)*.
Back then the educated stratum was thinner, and many in that stratum put on suits every single day. So one can say, it was more casual for them. Of course same with women’s dresses.
Structural changes are so strong that it is difficult to come up with a way to compare. Maybe if I come up with such a way, I’ll see that as you say, people dress more casually.
*And then again I’ll say “let’s don’t go there”.
Short sentences. That’s what the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat has been doing since time immemorial. Gladly only in Finnish so the impact is limited. No foreigners hurt except the brave, maybe the crazy, maybe the weird. Bluntly put, effective journalism it claims to be. What is subject? Makes head heavy. Head somber.
Ugh. Bugh.
Short independent sentences are unBiblical. God Himself has shown us the true path by His creation of the Vav Consecutive.
I see Helsingin Sanomat and raise you Der Spiegel (second half of this comment).
I see Der Spiegel and raise you jokes about Stierlitz (which in turn imitate peculiar narrator voice in the TV series).
The type specimen of a whole (sub)genre of them is
Из окна дуло. [there was a draft from the window]
Штирлиц закрыл окно. [Stierlitz closed the window]
Дуло исчезло. [The barrel disappeared]
[paradoxal re-interpretation of the first line: there was a [gun] barrel from the window]
Its clumsiness (what do you mean, barrel from the window? Is “disappear” what you expect from barrels?) in intended actually, such jokes are meant to be paradoxal in various ways.
Say, Штирлиц склонился над картой. Его неудержимо рвало на родину. is an excellent pun but it is not paradoxal in any way.
““Tentacle sex” erotica in Japanese culture is pretty old.” – @Brett, I know (I even think the picture is used in the WP artcile about tentacle sex), and that’s one reason why I think censorship was hardly enough to create the genre.
Thanks for the link: there is a translation of the text there!
“LARGE OCTOPUS: All eight limbs to interwine with!! How do you like it this way?”
Reminded me a song my friends improvised when playing vuvuzelas after having some marijuana.
(…eight tentacles – eight girls off the ship…)
@languagehat
“𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑦 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑥 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑒, 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔. “
Based on whose judgment? Respectfully, you’re presenting your opinion, just as I am presenting mine. There is no impartial “wrong” position here, just a difference of opinion.
My view is not merely personal. Many major critics and writers have argued that 17th-19th century literature is more aesthetically detailed and more semantically and syntactically complex than much of contemporary writing. George Steiner, for example, mourned the decline of high rhetorical and philosophical prose, and Lionel Trilling argued that modern literature often replaces complexity with attitude or cleverness. F.R. Leavis explicitly associates linguistic subtlety and complexity with earlier prose traditions. Cormac McCarthy’s prose borrows heavily from biblical and 19th-century cadences. He rejects minimalist norms. Marilynne Robinson frequently contrasts serious literary language with contemporary superficiality. Harold Bloom argued that the Western canon represents a peak of aesthetic and imaginative power largely centered in earlier centuries.
“𝑌𝑜𝑢’𝑟𝑒 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑑-𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖, 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑓𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛’𝑡 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑦 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑢𝑝.𝐼’𝑣𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒𝑙𝑠𝑒𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑒𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝑟𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚.”
Your labeling undermines the intellectual integrity of this discussion. Labeling my position instead of addressing it is a rhetorical shortcut, not a rebuttal. If you disagree with my argument, I’m happy to discuss it, but dismissing it wholesale doesn’t substitute for engagement. I never asserted a preference for the past, only a stylistic distinction. I never claimed or implied that earlier literature is “better”. I just argued that earlier prose indulged in greater syntactic and rhetorical complexity. Also, I’m not “missing out”, I do engage in abstruse contemporary literature, but I read books mostly by modernist and classic authors.
There is no impartial “wrong” position here, just a difference of opinion.
Nonsense. You’re simply wrong; if you bothered reading today’s book reviews (NYRB, LRB, TLS, etc.) instead of wallowing in old fossils like Steiner, Trilling, and (God save the mark) F. R. Leavis you’d know about modern writers of complex prose, but you don’t actually care, you’re content to fire your blunderbuss in sublime ignorance of facts.
I do engage in abstruse contemporary literature
Ha, that’s a good one! What do you mean by “abstruse contemporary literature”? David Foster Wallace?
George Steiner…Lionel Trilling…F.R. Leavis…Cormac McCarthy’s prose…Marilynne Robinson…Harold Bloom
what a list! god save the mark indeed!
and notable that two of them – including the only living person on the list! – are not just writers of contemporary anglophone fiction, but bestselling and heavily lauded authors, with much of their honors arriving in the most recent segments of their careers. further, robinson is among the living people who has been most influential on the mainstream of anglophone fiction writing, having spent 25 years teaching at the Iowa Writers Workshop (retiring from a named chair there), as well as being active and successful on the college writing-program circuit. hardly marginal, or dismissed, or anything of the sort. in fact, excellent evidence against the absence, or marginalization, of complex prose in contemporary anglophone fiction.*
.
* i’m taking J-A’s word here on those writers’ style; i haven’t read enough of either to judge. however, based on the little mccarthy i’ve read (i feel okay generalizing since i gather he is thought to have a very distinct and consistent style) to my ear his prose is plodding, simple in its construction, and by my lights definitely “minimalist”.
@Hat:
Now, now. There’s no need to insinuate that people might be fans of David Foster Wallace just because they think that All Is But Opinion.* Gentle understanding is called for, not low abuse.
* Ὅτι πᾶν ὑπόληψις. (Can’t abide Marcus Aurelius, personally.)
I’m a fan of Marilynne Robinson’s novels (we Calvinists stick together.) I don’t think her prose is exactly ornate, though.
I’m not very taken with her Reading Genesis, the only substantial non-fiction of hers that I’ve read. Does not engage with the relevant scholarship. She’d reply, reasonably enough, that her objectives were devotional rather than scholarly, but even devotional works need to get the basic facts right. But again, Non omnia possumus omnes. I’ll get back to you once I’m an award-winning novelist.
If one of us came up with several more or less objective quantitive measures of complexity etc. (“aesthetically detailed” “semantically and syntactically complex”, “subtlety”, “imaginative power” – words used by Jean-Antoine) and good criteria for what we should count as “such-and-such-th century prose”, she would very likely have found that some of the values have changed a lot and some not much.
Of course modern prose is somehow different from then prose, it is unlikely it will be evenly “same” for all such measures.
(and this argument could lead to a better understanding of how it is different and how it is not if it were a bit more constructive. I say so, because I think LH’s saying it couldn’t.)
Yer stereotypical “minimalist” in the Iowa-Writers-Workshop-ghetto world might well be the late Raymond Carver, who is almost exactly the same age as (10 months younger, if you’re counting) Thomas Pynchon, whose prose is generally thought of as aggressively non-minimalist. The likewise aggressively-non-minimalist Ishmael Reed, mentioned upthread by rozele, managed to be born right in between the two of them.
It is probably easier to teach MFA students who have not yet come up with distinctive or idiosyncratic voices to emulate a “minimal” style than to emulate a “maximal” style, though, which could plausibly lead to the perception of an era overdominated by that style.
I would imagine that Jean-Antoine is more manly than you are supposing, drasvi.
I think you could come up with some reasonable objective measures of syntactic complexity, like depth of nesting of subordinate clauses and so forth. I suspect that this would not, in fact, correlate very well with the other desiderata enumerated. In particular, colloquial spoken English is substantially more complex structurally than is generally appreciated. Much of this complexity is of a kind which is poorly handled by traditional grammars. And conversely, technical prose tends to load the complexity into the lexicon, not the syntax, which is often very simple.
Cross-linguistically, such formal features vary a great deal in their frequency. Kusaal just loves embedding, even in ordinary speech. It’s just how the language operates, and means nothing at all in terms of stylistic “complexity.”
In many other languages formal parataxis conceals semantic relationships every bit as complex as those involved in subordination, but mediated by things like subtleties of reference tracking and logical relationships which are implied rather than explicitly represented in the clause structure.
@DE, as an L2-user of English and other languages I of coruse agree. I know very well what it means, to read (even fluently) scieintific works in a language you basically don’t know. Whole [sceintific] Russia does it. I did it when I didn’t really know English and I do it in a dozen European languages now. I once saw a description of CEFR scale by some Japanese language school where you could ‘understand lectures’ at C1 and read such works at C2 – and heard similar things in contexts other than CEFR. It is ridiculous.
Like you (if that’s what you meant) I expect modern prose to be ahead here and fall behind there and I also expect the result will vary greatly depending on what we understand as “modern prose”. My idea is same as with people who “dress more casually”: there has been many stuctural changes, that is, one structure was replaced with another. But it would be interesting to understand those structures (and then based on objective criteria, some people would complain how everything has changed to worse and others would boast that everything has changed to better and another group would believe nothing has changed).
Now, now. There’s no need to insinuate that people might be fans of David Foster Wallace just because they think that All Is But Opinion.* Gentle understanding is called for, not low abuse.
You’re quite right. Sorry, J-A, I got carried away!
@Languagehat:
“𝑁𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒. 𝑌𝑜𝑢’𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔; ”
That’s a conclusion, not an argument. If you think I’m wrong, elaborate about what, and by which criteria; taste, historical trend, or linguistic measurement. Those are not the same claim.
“𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑏𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜𝑑𝑎𝑦’𝑠 𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑠 (𝑁𝑌𝑅𝐵, 𝐿𝑅𝐵,𝑇𝐿𝑆…)”
Reading contemporary reviews doesn’t address the point under discussion. The claim isn’t that serious literature no longer exists; it’s that average prose style has shifted toward shorter sentences and reduced syntactic embedding over the last two centuries. That claim is empirical, not a referendum on current reviewing culture.
“𝑊𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑙𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑆𝑡𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑟, 𝑇𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔…”
Some of those old fossils were, and are, of your generation. Dismissing critics or writers by age or reputation doesn’t refute their arguments. Steiner and Trilling were responding to changes in education, language, and literary ambition that are now widely documented, not nostalgically imagined. Whether one agrees with them or not, their relevance depends on the accuracy of their diagnoses, not on their vintage.
“…𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑑 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑥 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑒, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑒, 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑏𝑙𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑠𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑠”
This is a false inference. Acknowledging a statistical trend says nothing about one’s familiarity with individual writers. Exceptional prose stylists exist in every period, including our own, but exceptions don’t negate trends. The existence of McCarthy, Morrison, or Patrick White doesn’t contradict evidence showing that mainstream prose has become more streamlined, less complex and utilitarian on average.
If you want to argue aesthetics, that’s subjective and worth debating on those terms. If you want to argue linguistic history, then we need agreed criteria and evidence. But accusing someone of “ignorance of facts” without identifying which facts are allegedly missing doesn’t advance either discussion.