Why are 18th century writers so unnecessarily verbose and meandering? Why write

Why are 18th century writers so unnecessarily verbose and meandering? Why write

"Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society."

Instead of

"Individuals strive to find the best use for their capital that benefits themselves, but this self-interest ultimately leads them to choose actions that are advantageous for society as a whole."

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >unnecessarily
    >"Me moron please talk easy"

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      filtered

      God I love anglo morons who can only think in emojis

      Brevity is the soul of wit. If you care more about meandering around for the sake of appearing "intellectual", then you're a woman. All of the most influential, insightful and inspirational sayings are concise and precise. Nobody remembers your gay, verbose paragraphs upon paragraphs from your favorite prose. But everyone has their favorite proverbs and one liner quotes. Not because they're short and easy to remember, but because best and the most creative and effective writers can compress the most complex and deepest ideas into the smallest number of words. It's also why poetry was always the preferred medium of literature throughout history until the invention of the printing press.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Brevity is the soul of wit

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Too long, how about:

          Brevity, wit

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            bitsow.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            bw

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Brevity is the soul of wit
        >Writes a paragraph immediately after
        Have you considered that they write to be completely understood as opposed to simply being witty?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          But I was not needlessly meandering for the sake of appearances, and never claimed to be a good writer. I need that many words to get my pleb point across.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >I need that many words to get my pleb point across.
            Maybe stop trying to get your pleb point across then? Maybe garner a little bit of intellectual humility, stop having disdain for authors who write in a way you(the author of pleb points) find inefficient, maybe think and understand for a few months, a few years, instead of making moronic threads in which you admit yourself, that your "wit" is only attracted to brevity because it hopes to find in the realm of thoughts, that which reflects its own underdeveloped dimensions.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Well, someone's triggered (or a woman, or both). BTW, I'm not OP. And yes, I am attracted to brevity because I appreciate the actual soul and wisdom in a piece of writing, rather than the needless bells and whistles dangling from it. A good writer knows how to get his point across elegantly without being meanderingly verbose just for the sake of it.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >BTW, I'm not OP

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Brevity is the soul of wit. Meandering in words to appear smart is womanly. All of the best sayings are precise. Nobody remembers gay prose shit, but everyone has fave proverbs and one-liners. Not because they're easy to remember, but the best wordsmiths are masters of condensing many big ideas into few words. Thus, poetry was the preferred medium until the invention of printing.

        Fixed your womanly meandering.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Brevity is the soul of wit.
          You’re not witty, you’re not smart, your opinion is worthless, you’re talentless, you will never write a book and if you do it will never be read by anyone not even by your own mother of whatever you think about prose is inconsequential. Just like if you killed yourself today it would be inconsequential and you wouldn’t be missed. I’d say do it, but I don’t really care.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Just to be clear, I'm not a professional 'quote maker'. I'm just an atheist reader who greatly values his intelligence and brevity over any so unnecessarily verbose and meandering silly fiction books. This being said, I am open to any and all criticism.

        In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony writer’s verbose paragraphs upon paragraphs. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence shaped by insightful and inspirational sayings in concise and precise ways.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          To clarify, I'm not good at making quotes, just an atheist who values intelligence and brevity over books with too many big words. Btw I am open to criticism.

          Currently, I am happy. Not because of phony verbosity. But because I am enlightened by my mind shaped by good & concise sayings.

          • 1 year ago
            Sage

            >Atheist
            >Enlightened
            >Me big smart
            The biggest phony I've seen today. Your pointless virtue signalling makes me wanna say YWNBAW

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        > Not because they're short and easy to remember
        It’s actually because of this. Keep deluding yourself

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Truth.
        This board is filled with so many pretentious gays lol

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        > Brevity is the soul of wit
        This is what globohomosexual prose stylists tell themselves to justify their shitty baby prose. Grossly misunderstood quote. Do you even know where it comes from, Black person?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          It's the exact opposite. Unconcise prose can be shit or well written, but concise prose has to be well written otherwise it's incomprehensible.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Verily correct.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        The moments when a lot is said in a few words don't come often and are often the result of a long buildup. You can't base a literary style on concision alone.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        The term you are looking for is "euphuism".

        >Brevity is the soul of wit
        That is a truism now, but in the past people thought the opposite. It predates the 18th century, see for example:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphues
        Notice the subtitle: The Anatomy of Wit. In the past people equated wit with grace, not efficiency. It is simply a matter of taste.

        They were paid by the word

        paid by the word.

        No, this style predates the practice of paying authors by the word. It applied much more broadly than professional writing anyway.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Brevity is the soul of wit.
        You wrote a fricking paragraph like the 18th century writer you're quoting instead of writing something that was concise, and somehow you made your points less interesting than the 18th century writer you have quoted in your OP.
        Absolute braindead-tier.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Brevity is the soul of wit
        >Writes a paragraph immediately after
        Have you considered that they write to be completely understood as opposed to simply being witty?

        The moments when a lot is said in a few words don't come often and are often the result of a long buildup. You can't base a literary style on concision alone.

        The term you are looking for is "euphuism".

        >Brevity is the soul of wit
        That is a truism now, but in the past people thought the opposite. It predates the 18th century, see for example:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphues
        Notice the subtitle: The Anatomy of Wit. In the past people equated wit with grace, not efficiency. It is simply a matter of taste.
        [...]
        [...]
        No, this style predates the practice of paying authors by the word. It applied much more broadly than professional writing anyway.

        You guys are so much better than pol, actual argument good going on.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Not for long if you stay here

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Its sad that you dont have confidence in your ability that you may change me for better than me changing you for worse.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Everything has it's place. A world without the ability to get lost and meander is a world without forests or oceans, a world without symphonies.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >[...] you're a woman. [...]
        I've been looking forward to this moment. Actually, I just came here for this confirmation and didn't even bother to read the rest. But you said it, right there and then. I'm officially a woman, a IQfy certified one!

        Take that chuds, IQfyerally!

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        The excerpt contains information which your rewrite doesn't

        >Brevity is the soul of wit
        If you believed that cliche you wouldn't have went on your "you're gay plus a woman" diatribe

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    filtered

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    God I love anglo morons who can only think in emojis

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The decline in complexity and sentence length accompanies a vast explosion in the amount of information available. More magazines, newspapers, literacy rates nearly topping out in most western countries. The people happy with this medium length are then horrified by the return of “telegram sentences” born in the first mobile phone generations, and then the dada-esque emoji generation who despite now having no such technological limitations on their expression participate in chats where their vocabulary is intentionally stunted and interrupted with pictograms and gif video clips.

    As much as the midwit response is always to point out “the older generations have always complained things are going to hell”, there is a real decline in reading comprehension following this, and the decline in reading books. Presumably what kids actually read online in the form of articles is also linguistically stunted compared to the book readers (you could probably analyze this via digitized archives, and I bet someone has).

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Presumably what kids actually read online in the form of articles is also linguistically stunted compared to the book readers
      SEO favors short sentences for literal morons. There's a nasty feedback loop in place that perpetuates this cycle.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      George Orwell's advice to writers from his essay "Politics and the English Language":

      1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
      2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
      3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
      4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
      5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
      6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        George Orwell was a good storyteller. His prose was nothing remarkable.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Received pronunciation and diction of the time, florid by contemporary standards.

      Literacy in the US was higher in the civil war era completely devoid of public schools as we know them. Having to parse KJV good and early was a good basis for the rest.

      [...]
      [...]
      Brevity is the soul of wit. If you care more about meandering around for the sake of appearing "intellectual", then you're a woman. All of the most influential, insightful and inspirational sayings are concise and precise. Nobody remembers your gay, verbose paragraphs upon paragraphs from your favorite prose. But everyone has their favorite proverbs and one liner quotes. Not because they're short and easy to remember, but because best and the most creative and effective writers can compress the most complex and deepest ideas into the smallest number of words. It's also why poetry was always the preferred medium of literature throughout history until the invention of the printing press.

      >Brevity is the soul of wit
      Extended thoughts require streamlined presentation. You must be able to do both without being prolix.

      George Orwell's advice to writers from his essay "Politics and the English Language":

      1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
      2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
      3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
      4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
      5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
      6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

      Simile's have to be earned. There's nearly always a better option.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Simile's have to be earned
        Which properties or possessions of this purported Simile were you referring to? I think it cut for a bit

        You wouldn't get it because you're a modernist cuck who thinks in terms of "get from point A to point B." You wouldn't know what to do with beautiful prose if you had it; it would be like feeding caviar to a pig. You might not even realise it but the type of prose you enjoy is the literary equivalent of grey, drab architecture; you want the idea as fast as possible; you don't even like prose in fact it's just another inconvenient means to an end. What you really want are the ideas funnelled directly into your brain and as rapidly as possible. But I guess you guys are too proud to get that from another medium like television or youtube so you look for it in the written word instead.

        >it would be like feeding caviar to a pig
        >literary equivalent of grey, drab architecture
        Well earned similes there, you're doing a job as good as that of a successful labour worker

        The purpose of public education, community colleges, and the general cultural trend of artifically extending childhood is to create a functionally moronic underclass of people capable of following orders and doing work, but never capable of threatening the established economic and political order. That is to say, people who can read and write at a basic level, do simple and repetitive tasks, but never think critically or move beyond their current station. What you considered rebose and meandering was once considered to be the basic level of the art of literacy. You probably don't even know what the art of literacy is.

        Before the advent of public schooling, the average person was taught at home by their parents to read, and wright, and thus the average level of education, even among the lower classes, was extremely high. Home schooling? Superior to state indoctrination? But the state says that isn't so! But the fact is, the people who have your greatest interests at heart are your own parents. At least, that use to be how things were. After all, if you wanted to be successful in the 17th, 18th, and even 19th centuries, you needed a wide variety of skills and the capacity to comprehend the world around you least you fall victim to its complexities. And you needed help, and the best help was your own family. The industrialist managerial class has put a stop to that. 100 years of compulsorary schooling has utterly destroyed the extended family, and soon the entire concept of family. But worry not. Everything will be fine. Cease your meaningless questions automaton, return to the hive, consume your slop, and enjoy your circuses.

        Oh, my source? I made it all up. I am the chosen one.

        Full of misspelled words, is that intentoinal? Is this a puzzle?

        [...]

        Let me put it in drone speak:

        >why is colored tv better than black and white? black and white images give you all the information you needed
        >because colored tv provides more details

        Language shapes the way you think. Complex sentences leads to complex thinking leads to complex thoughts. This is the entire reason wef bullshit like common core exists: to train students to think in simplified terms, to drag them down to the lowest level as their worst peers, in order to artifically prop up the grade average by making everyone think the same. It's akin to cutting everyone's arm off so that the class has the same general physical ability as the one cripple naturally in the class. Of course, people would be outraged if you started chopping children's arms off willy nilly, but nobody gives it a second thought if its a seemingly harmless school cirriculum that the parents dont even have access to because they are too busy both wage slaving away so they can pay their taxes to the system that promises to raise their children for them. Surely this system which depends upon their hard work would never harm them... right? Except the system doesnt need their taxes. It's all a charade to keep them enslaved and distracted as their children are intentionally ruined in some massive social engineering experiment to create a slave under class.

        >they are too busy both wage slaving away so they can pay their taxes to the system that promises to raise their children for them.
        To me this sentence is both confusing.

        Everything has it's place. A world without the ability to get lost and meander is a world without forests or oceans, a world without symphonies.

        >Everything has it's place
        Everything has what, and what do you claim is "place"? Sounds like your cuts off in the middle, try again

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous
        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >oey vey im not going to rebut anything, just low key passively aggressively insult people and ask more questions to get more responses, like my rabbi taught me to do. my israeli pil pul arguementative style is clearly superior and therefore that makes me correct. dance goyim, dance!

          Everyone should look closely at this post. This is what modern pseduo-intellectualism looks like: an extension of the rabinical tradition of pilpul. This poster offers nothing to the thread, he contributes nothing. He has no point and takes no position, but he cleverly pretends everyone around him is wrong and therefore assumes the position of being right by default.

          https://www.israelivirtuallibrary.org/pilpul

          Whenever you see or hear someone talking a lot of nonsense while presuming the moral or intellectual highground, remember the word pilpul. It's an obscure debating style based on a backward bronze age religion's equally outdated belief system. To people not familiar with it, it's an easy trap to fall into. Do not waste your energy with these kinds of posters, do not consider the content of their posts. Just do what

          did and hit them with a dank meme because that is all the effort they deserve.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Someone else has read 'Amusing ourselves to death'.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >so unnecessarily verbose and meandering

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Because literature is about more than the efficient transfer of information you zoomer

  7. 1 year ago
    S10241875

    Verbosity and ornateness began to be considered a sign of smart and elegant speech. It seems like the phrases in the book should flow like music and be as rich, regardless of the fact that the phrase itself may contain very little meaning. In addition, books were mainly written for rich people who could afford long leisure. It seems like reading itself was a process of cultural leisure, and obtaining information was a vulgar result.
    It annoys me too.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      An unaesthetic affectation tied to the degeneration of the European aristocratic caste. I agree.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      in a similar vein try reading any academic paper from ~1980 prior, especially on STEM subjects such as mathematics. They're all written in a similar ornate fashion simply because that was the academic style until very recently

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    'Every', 'exerting', and 'advantageous' have alliteration (2/3), internal rhyminess, and consonance. 'command' allits off 'capital' and 'continually'. Nice modulation of 'm' and 'n' sounds throughout. 'indeed' plays off 'individual' and 'in view' etc... Unfortunately all this is too subtle for ADHD-ridden TikTok obsessed zoomers like yourself.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    They were paid by the word

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      no i wasnt

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    why many words if few enough

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Why aren’t like my TikTok videos??
    Drink bleach, moronic zoomer.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Why are you pretending that being meandering is a good thing? You don't write or talk like that. Also you're stupid if you think "Individuals strive to find the best use for their capital that benefits themselves, but this self-interest ultimately leads them to choose actions that are advantageous for society as a whole." is tiktok shit. You're just regurgitating memes you borrow from your fellow losers on the internet.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Why should the written word be an exact copy of the oral language? I don’t get this view. “You HAVE to write like you talk, mkay? Even literary narrators, for le… reasons!” No, I don’t and you will never be a woman. Globohomosexual baby prose is only pushed by publishers and their factories (le MFA writing programs) because it means they can sell their goyslop to a wider audience of plebs. It’s a commercial decision.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          You don't write like that either. Where's your book? You prefer writing like this

          https://i.imgur.com/3SM1ZZU.jpg

          Why are 18th century writers so unnecessarily verbose and meandering? Why write

          "Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society."

          Instead of

          "Individuals strive to find the best use for their capital that benefits themselves, but this self-interest ultimately leads them to choose actions that are advantageous for society as a whole."

          or something? And look at you just regurgitating memes you borrow from your fellow losers in the internet. I guess that's how far your vocabulary reach.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Black person, I don’t even do my actual writing in English. You don’t have to use the thing you’re defending when you’re defending it. What moronic logic is that.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    paid by the word.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    No one in this thread has given a good reason why the top text is better than the bottom text.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It paints a fuller picture. More explicative.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        How so? What elements of the final message are missing from the bottom text as compared to the top? Fuller picture means details are missing.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          You wouldn't get it because you're a modernist cuck who thinks in terms of "get from point A to point B." You wouldn't know what to do with beautiful prose if you had it; it would be like feeding caviar to a pig. You might not even realise it but the type of prose you enjoy is the literary equivalent of grey, drab architecture; you want the idea as fast as possible; you don't even like prose in fact it's just another inconvenient means to an end. What you really want are the ideas funnelled directly into your brain and as rapidly as possible. But I guess you guys are too proud to get that from another medium like television or youtube so you look for it in the written word instead.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      How so? What elements of the final message are missing from the bottom text as compared to the top? Fuller picture means details are missing.

      Let me put it in drone speak:

      >why is colored tv better than black and white? black and white images give you all the information you needed
      >because colored tv provides more details

      Language shapes the way you think. Complex sentences leads to complex thinking leads to complex thoughts. This is the entire reason wef bullshit like common core exists: to train students to think in simplified terms, to drag them down to the lowest level as their worst peers, in order to artifically prop up the grade average by making everyone think the same. It's akin to cutting everyone's arm off so that the class has the same general physical ability as the one cripple naturally in the class. Of course, people would be outraged if you started chopping children's arms off willy nilly, but nobody gives it a second thought if its a seemingly harmless school cirriculum that the parents dont even have access to because they are too busy both wage slaving away so they can pay their taxes to the system that promises to raise their children for them. Surely this system which depends upon their hard work would never harm them... right? Except the system doesnt need their taxes. It's all a charade to keep them enslaved and distracted as their children are intentionally ruined in some massive social engineering experiment to create a slave under class.

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The purpose of public education, community colleges, and the general cultural trend of artifically extending childhood is to create a functionally moronic underclass of people capable of following orders and doing work, but never capable of threatening the established economic and political order. That is to say, people who can read and write at a basic level, do simple and repetitive tasks, but never think critically or move beyond their current station. What you considered rebose and meandering was once considered to be the basic level of the art of literacy. You probably don't even know what the art of literacy is.

    Before the advent of public schooling, the average person was taught at home by their parents to read, and wright, and thus the average level of education, even among the lower classes, was extremely high. Home schooling? Superior to state indoctrination? But the state says that isn't so! But the fact is, the people who have your greatest interests at heart are your own parents. At least, that use to be how things were. After all, if you wanted to be successful in the 17th, 18th, and even 19th centuries, you needed a wide variety of skills and the capacity to comprehend the world around you least you fall victim to its complexities. And you needed help, and the best help was your own family. The industrialist managerial class has put a stop to that. 100 years of compulsorary schooling has utterly destroyed the extended family, and soon the entire concept of family. But worry not. Everything will be fine. Cease your meaningless questions automaton, return to the hive, consume your slop, and enjoy your circuses.

    Oh, my source? I made it all up. I am the chosen one.

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Why are 18th century writers so unnecessarily verbose and meandering?
    >why 18th century bookman talk many much?

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    dumb frogposter

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >"Individuals strive to find the best use for their capital that benefits themselves, but this self-interest ultimately leads them to choose actions that are advantageous for society as a whole."
    Boring.
    >"Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society."
    Engaging.

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The longer version feels like a story with twists. Your version feels like a textbook making an authoritative claim without sourcing it.

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It was the style at the time

    Reading Spengler I get this
    A lot of seemingly repeating the same thing but qualifying it with the specific topic at hand

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous
  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Academics still write like 18th century writers then, I suppose. You probably never had to read any dense academic work

  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >advantageous has more specific meaning than 'best'
    >removing 'continually' takes away meaning. This is something individuals are ALWAYS doing
    >use of 'employment' evokes the idea of money being put to work for more money
    >your version doesn't stress the inevitability of the conclusion
    The original is fuller, has more texture. More said in less. It also flows much better.

  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Many word are the mark of a fool.

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