fiction = 'literary prose or poetry'; remit = 'assigned or expected task'

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Tue Nov 20 03:12:44 UTC 2012


On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 8:15 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> what Stone or his Times editor really wished to say was that
> the panel was to choose "prose and poetry."
>
> Not *fiction.*

Jon, clarity is no longer a part of "good" writing. The reader is
challenged to figure out for himself from context what the writer
*really* intends to say, exactly as you've so successfully done.

It's the opposite of the dumbing-down done for the benefit of the polloi.

Given the continuing rise of SAT scores among the children of the
privileged, it's a natural evolutionary progression. As our generation
dies off, any problems with this sea-change will simply vanish of
themselves.

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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