h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of my favourite authors is the late Helene Hanff (A710056), who wrote the collection of letters '84 Charing Cross Road'. In her book 'Q's Legacy', she described her moment of revelation when she encountered the work of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, professor of English Literature, Jesus College Cambridge. His book 'On the Art of Writing' is an anthology of his lectures to his students and in one chapter, 'On Jargon', he spells out the difference between what one might subjectively call 'good' or 'bad' writing by presenting two sentences:

'He was conveyed to his place of residence in an intoxicated condition.'

'He was carried home drunk.'

The point he made in this lecture was that the first sentence was jargon and the second was good English prose.

As I read his view on the two sentences, I had to read it back again, as Helene explains she had done herself when she'd first read it. Surely the first sentence is a 'literary' sentence and the second just a bit bland? Surely the first sentence is an example of 'better' writing because more thought has gone into it?

But then Q went on to quote a former British Prime Minister who responded to a question in the House of Commons by saying 'The answer to the question is in the negative.' Quiller-Couch (known to one and all as 'Q') noted that the Prime Minister's answer just meant 'No'. Simple as that. 'Can you discover it to mean anything more.' he asked the students, 'except that the speaker is a pompous person, which was no part of the information required.'

For a project like h2g2, we encounter many writing styles. But I'd far sooner read something with the simplicity of the second sentence Q gave us than the complexity of the first. The second sentence tells us what we need to know; the first sentence tells us too much we don't need to know. Which is to say, some people are dismissive of those Researchers who prefer to write plainly and simply, but for me and the rest of the team, they're the kind of writers who reflect the style of our founder, Douglas Adams, who had the skill to write incredibly intricate sentences, but also managed to make us understand complex ideas through clear writing. His best jokes often worked through very simple use of language ('what's wrong with being drunk? 'Ask a glass of water.'). Similarly, the best h2g2 entries don't tell us more about the author than the subject; they break huge concepts down into parts, explain the issues simply, while using as few adjectives as they can get away with and only as many metaphors as are absolutely necessary.

... or even: 'Good writing should make us go "oh!" more often than 'Eh?"'

To which, one can only respond by acknowledging whole-heartedly and without arguement, to the pro's by and in saying that it is in the positive and afermative.

Ironically, that might be the most coherent thing I've ever heard from 2legs.

B

What? lest you continue your smiting of the hoovery and hooverable foresaking the double devan of the One True BoB and not withstanding wholesale noodly appendages and touching forthwith

I have to agree with you Jims, but only up to a point.

DNA (and those who come here and copy his style) can often be equally verbose. For instance...

'This can readibly be explained by...'
'This is due to the fact that...'
'Because...'

Unless I'm mistaken, all three mean the same thing and/or can be used interchangably.

The first two I equate with a certain type of humour beloved of DNA, Pratchett and a particular type of 16 year-old schoolboy. We often see entries written in that sort of style. There was a rugby-related entry last year which reeked of it.

I think the two examples you gave up there are opposite ends of the spectrum Jims, and personally I prefer something in between the two but tending toward the latter:

'He was carried home in a drunken stupor and a taxi cab'.

I know there's a name for that sort of English construction but I'm buggered if I can remember what it is.

Far as I'm concerned, the best purveyor of the English language - bar none, even the Bard or DNA - was Viv Stanshall. 'Sir Henry at Rawlinson End' is a masterpiece of humorous description and I'm grateful that I got to see him perform some of it live at the Bloomsbury Theatre a few years before he dropped off the twig The combination of those words and that voice were just magical

And now I have them on a CD-R

<>

If I'm thinking right, it's either zeugma or syllepsis. I quote from Stephen Fry's 'The Liar', as best as I can remember:

"Two policemen emerged, making insinuations and an arrest."
"Was that zeugma or syllepsis?"
"It was an impertinence and an inconvenience."

I love that exchange.

As one who has a tendency towards verbosity (and a student who often has to meet minimum page requirements), I sympathise with those who tend to use more words than necessary. Perhaps it is part of growing up and becoming more mature to realise that you don't really need all those words.

It could also be described as 'the art of getting away with it'. Stephen Fry's comedy relies upon the perception of his verbosity being viewed as both pompous and gleeful, just as some of Douglas's work plays with language and form to create a joke. But for factual writing, it's something that has to be used sparingly. It's quite a common trick on h2g2 (and elsewhere) to explain the complexity of something by writing an incredibly long sentence and then to repeat the same point in a very short one - and that's a good use of form because the actual explanation relies on there being a very short way of saying the same thing as the long-winded way.

There's a thing at the BBC called the Reithian values - the values set out by the first Director General, Lord Reith. He believed that the BBC should 'educate, inform and entertain'. They're values that are sometimes quoted dismissively nowadays, but they're still the best goals anyone ever came up for the corporation. I'd say that h2g2 entries should always aspire to them: a reader should feel like they know what a thing is; they should know why it's like that; and they should also feel like they had fun finding out. It's that last bit that separates us from other sites.

This is all very, oh whats the word, indepth Jims...

...something troubling you?


I'm a tad concerned that you're directing this to entries in the guide. Somethings obviously got at you.




Needless to say, all of the above went completely over my head. I'm not the literary type.





*mumbles and shudders* reading long words on a Monday morning. I mean, what is the world coming to!!!

Although I'd agree in broad terms that we need or should aim to have the 'short' descriptions' etc., in guide entrys (which fits in with my accademic writing style in the sciences), this can't and shouldn't always be the case; In particular I can think of articles/guide entrys of a scientific nature, where the quickest way to write a lot of it, and the most succint way would be to over-use excessive jargon which would disenfranchise a lot or even most readers from attempting to read it; as it would then naturally entail having many many footnotes to give sentence long explinaions of the technical terminology.
The other main reason I can see for when having the longer, more verbose descriptions/writing, is where it is on a subject where the reader is likely to encounter more long winded verbose descriptions on the matter elsewhere, in such a case this can give the reader an idea of how they're going to find the subject written about elsewhere; Such a case would be a good example where it'd be sensible to have a more verbose/long winded description followed by the more compact to the point description

Traveller in Time reading
"As in: you agree with the first posting.

I still forget to include the topic in highly condensed postings. "

> as few adjectives as they can get away with and only as many metaphors as are absolutely necessary.

Scarily, when I was in year 8 my English teacher actually gave me a modern (then) book on English style that was actually trying to teach me to laden every sentence with as many adjectives as possible... *shudders*

"a reader should feel like they know what a thing is; they should know why it's like that; and they should also feel like they had fun finding out. It's that last bit that separates us from other sites"

I don't think we're as alone in that respect as we often like to think we are (although I can't bring any other examples to mind right now) and, from my point of view, too many Researchers concentrate far too heavily on the 'that last bit'. They forget one of the most important rules of comedy (and/or showbiz): always leave 'em wanting more. They try too hard to be funny/entertaining. You can always tell, and it's always painful.

I know I always use this entry as an example, but it's a bloody good one. This is how 'that last bit' should be done: A1171603

"Not content with an enormous organ, the State also has a 130-foot tower thrusting upwards into the north-west London sky. It is a landmark, lit up at night in tasteful red neon"



I miss Gubernatrix.

I've always found news writing difficult - the concept of the inverted pyramid that blurts out the headline, then repeats the essense of the ehadline with more words, then explains the headline in more detail diminishing to the least important point at the bottom. Goes against everything I'd ever learned about how to structure a story. News is the opposite to jokes. In news, the 'punchline' comes first.

how does the old adage go? never use a conjunction when you can use a comma. never use a comma when you can use a full stop.

i hate florid writing and speaking except as parody or as exhuberent showing off. the fry example mentioned earlier is both of those. same with the blackadder stuff. i doubt it would be half as funny if it were not referenced to actual pompous writing out there.

part of the problem is that in school we are encouraged to make complicated sentences. teachers are delighted by subordinate clauses written by youngsters. encouraged, we learn to think of complexity as an achievement when the opposite is true. simplicity is hard.

whenever i come across florid, complicated prose it is difficult for me not to imagine a teenager or younger undergraduate writing it.