Comments on: Bad Writing

By: hotdoguero

hotdoguero — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:17:43 +0000

skim through the Internal Revenue Code for some wonderful bedtime and coffee shop reading. That kind of text, legal writing, is the pinnacle of bad wordcraft.

By: Five Cents

Five Cents — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:30:50 +0000

The mention of ‘whole’ over and over is an old rhetorical trick called Anaphora (google it). Shakespeare also used it in his plays.

By: dignan

dignan — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:01:30 +0000

Plus, the longwinded syllabus writer hyphenated “overarching” when he/she shouldn’t have. Maybe this writer should focus more on learning the technical basics instead of expressing a concept in as many words as possible.

By: matilda

matilda — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 03:24:51 +0000

>I hope that all of you that make this hateful and reckless comments about Heath burn blissfully in hell. It’s so classy of you to take the plunge on him now that he can’t fight back… Really brave!
>Yeah… Awesome…. Just fucking burn in hell. All of you, motherfuckers!
>

By: TC the Terrible

TC the Terrible — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:19:46 +0000

“He goes to a public school so I guess we’re lucky he can even read.”

Classic. Sad. True.

By: Mig

Mig — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:00:46 +0000

This is all too similar to Pitchfork Media. Pompous writing at its finest.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:54:59 +0000

Creative writing is simple: Whatever topic you are given, think about what it reminds you of, and write about that instead.

By: roissy

roissy — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:20:39 +0000

http://xkcd.com/451/

roissy’s last blog post: Who Is Smarter?.

By: Sunny

Sunny — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:37:53 +0000

Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully – in Ten Minutes, by Stephen King

http://www.greatwriting.co.uk/content/view/312/74/

I can’t believe that this guide for adults is simpler than your little brother’s syllabus.

By: Nina

Nina — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:29:26 +0000

art theory class?
did you ever thought about philosophy class?
it’s a lot of shit!
But it could be good if you get lucky.

By: finefantastic

finefantastic — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:27:28 +0000

anon: And the intercom would blare “5 minutes” “1 minute” “30 seconds” ’til class starts. hahahaha. my high school would berate us into submission and depression by blaring seal's "kiss from a rose" over the intercom every monday morning finefantastic's last blog post: Back to Cool..

By: anon

anon — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:22:05 +0000

only a techie could coin the term “Nourishment requests.”

I once went to a ‘diverse’ public highschool in L.A. for a day, to help out a teacher I knew there. Instead of ‘recess,’ it was ‘nutrition.’ And the intercom would blare “5 minutes” “1 minute” “30 seconds” ’til class starts.

By: LanierHts

LanierHts — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:03:07 +0000

I miss Kathrynon.

By: Namtab

Namtab — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:49:53 +0000

Dude – that’s an ELEVEN YEAR OLD’S syllabus?

By: finefantastic

finefantastic — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:52:55 +0000

university is a great champion of bad writing, particularly
art theory class. mutability-this, reflexive-that. it is just preparing you for the bullshit workplace. this is a handy tool to have for work:

http://members.aol.com/matt999h/bullshit.htm

finefantastic’s last blog post: Wet T-Shirt Contests in Hell.

By: Meeze

Meeze — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:34:51 +0000

I think the most surprising part of this whole post is the revelation that you read TechCrunch.

By: Zosimus the Heathen

Zosimus the Heathen — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:58:22 +0000

While I’ve seldom been accused of bad writing, I did go through an unfortunate period some years back when I thought I was creating works of literary genius simply by cramming every sentence I wrote with as many adjectives and adverbs as I could. Still, I’m not too hard on myself about that given my biggest influence at the time was H.P. Lovecraft; rereading a collection of his short stories last year, I could see only too well how his material had corrupted me. Talk about purple prose! (Actually, a lot of his stuff’s pretty good – he creates some wonderfully evocative scenes of horror and general weirdness; he plays with words in an interesting and unique way; and his material certainly increases your vocabulary! It’s just that he went overboard with things a lot of the time. He also seemed to have a curious aversion to using full stops; I lost count of the number of times I had to restrain myself from throwing the book across the room when I came across yet another fucking sentence in it that went for half a fucking page!)

By: SeaFighter HSV

SeaFighter HSV — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:38:55 +0000

“I’m no Hemingway”

You’re barely more literate than VK.

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:12:09 +0000

Ever read Empire by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt? I’ve never read more masturbatory pedantic writing.