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

[Jonathan Lighter]

 > The reader is challenged to figure out for himself from context what the
writer *really* intends to say

My students used to do this all the time. Maybe I should go back and change
some grades....

JL

On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 10:12 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: fiction = 'literary prose or poetry'; remit = 'assigned
> or
>               expected task'
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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>



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