Illiteracy is becoming rampant. Reminds me of the fact that a lot of children aren't taught how to sound out letters and are instead taught whole words from the beginning. They memorize it like it's a hieroglyphic instead of learning how to actually read and then picking up more advanced tricks on top of that foundational skill.
"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other words? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take 'good,' for instance. If you have a word like 'good,' what need is there for a word like 'bad'? 'Ungood' will do just as well--better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of 'good,' what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like 'excellent' and 'splendid' and all the rest of them? 'Plusgood' covers the meaning, or 'doubleplusgood' if you want something stronger still...In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words--in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston?"
The example in that screenshot is also just. Worse. Like, let's do a comparison here, and bearing in mind that I have not read Gatsby:
"In my younger and more vulnerable years" vs "When I was young". The original emphasises the narrator's condition/state of mind when their father gave them that advice, the summarised version loses that. Also, "younger" and "young" are two different things - the original line compares the narrator's age then to their age now, it doesn't necessarily mean they were actually young at the time or that they're not young anymore, and the summarised version suggests both of those things
"Gave me some advice" vs "told me something" - the original is significantly more specific. All telling someone something means is that you're conveying information. Giving someone advice means that you're providing insight/instruction on something - either specific, like the best way to do a Task, or more generic, like your thoughts on how to live a fulfilling life
"I've been" vs "I". This might not seem like as big a deal but the summarised version suggests the narrator only occasionally reflects on their father's advice, whereas the original text suggests a more continuous and ongoing action. It puts emphasis on how much that advice has affected the narrator
"Turning over in my mind" vs "Think about". The former suggests more regular, more active, and more intense reflection than what comes to mind upon reading the latter. Again, emphasises how much that advice has affected the narrator
"Ever since" vs "still". Again, "ever since" suggests something continuous and constant, putting emphasis on how big of a deal the narrator's dad's advice was. "Still" does not do that
Even simple matters of word choice like "in my [...] years" vs "when i was [...]" or "father" instead of "dad" serve a purpose - they maintain the narrator's "voice" and make them sound like an actual character with an actual personality. I'm not sure if it would have come off the same way to a 1920s reader, but to a modern reader it suggests the narrator tends to speak in a somewhat formal way
And the 1984 quote above is worth pointing out as well, not necessarily for the Newspeak comparison (Newspeak is an in-universe modified English deliberately constructed to restrict the articulation of ideas, a good IRL comparison would be censoring discussion of/references to LGBT+ topics, whereas with this BS it's hard to say whether the continued erosion of literacy is the secret true goal of this or just a side effect)
But because it's another example of how word choice matters and helps make a point. Notice how, when explaining the supposed benefits of Newspeak, the speaker barely uses Newspeak at all? And how this entire quote would become cumbersome and unwieldy if "translated" into Newspeak and probably wouldn't get all of its ideas across the same way? Notice, in other words, how the architects of Newspeak don't use it themselves and using Newspeak would make it impossible to properly describe it?
okay okay I know the point of this is “White people need to put as much effort into learning how to pronounce Black people’s names as they do foreign European names” and 100% I totally agree, absolutely good point
but this tweet becomes hilarious in the context of this clip:
anyways, absolutely put effort into learning how people pronounce their names. just don’t feel bad if it takes you some time to get it right 😅
(also in case you didn’t watch the video it’s “N-SHOO-tee” not “SHOO-tee”)
the two flavours of this feeling are "i think she is flawed and going through it and figuring her shit out and that's a very human quality that i appreciate seeing in a female character" and "i think it's good she killed and ate those people and i think it's really hot that she didn't feel bad about it because confidence is attractive"
there's a post on here that's like "the worst thing a piece of fiction can be is mean", and while I agree with that, I think it being insincere is just as bad. nothing more obnoxious than a story that's constantly sneering and rolling its eyes at its own genre in a bid to seem clever and above it all.
"isn't it so ridiculous how we're singing in this musical?" "isn't the world building in our monster collector so ridiculous?" "aren't the leads in our fairy tale romance such idiots?" "isn't the setup in this horror film so cliched?" okay now say something true and real.
vergak
shadow-posession-jutsu
afreemanlearns
thememedaddy
welpnotagain
teaboot