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Anonymous

04:19

Q: Is the language of The Economist artificially complex?

I wonder whether reading the articles of the journals similar to The Economist (including Time, etc) are in a style that make them difficult to flow even for native-readers? Is the effort to read them is as smooth as other every day text for a native speaker (not a language learner)? For exampl...

style

Anonymous

This question has been sitting at 4 close votes for a while. It just barely made it out of the review queue alive.

CowperKettle

05:11

@snailplane One of the very few questions on SE that I dared to downvote. The answer is self-evident: "King-sized gun"..

2 hours later…

Lawrence

06:54

@snailplane The accepted answer notwithstanding, I'd expect the 'real' answer to be 'no'. I don't expect any mass-media editor to artificially complicate their publications - that runs counter to their desire for reach.

Lawrence

07:40

@snailplane That was an entertaining read.

4 hours later…

SmokeDetector

11:13

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, pattern-matching email in answer: meaning the adjective "messed up" in context by Melissa Deditch on ell.SE

1 hour later…

userr2684291

12:41

@Lawrence I don't think that introduction complex at all, just a tad "literarized" for whatever reason. I think a bit of a cozy introduction is actually okay; the rest of the article is more Wikipedia-like. But yeah, this question should be closed as it attracts opinions, since you can't really know why they do what they do without asking/being them.

Hm, the question from the title differs from the one in the question body, however. The asker is literally asking for native speakers with a bachelor degree to answer, lol.

ell.stackexchange.com/a/161753/3395 And this got 17 upvotes, and my flag ("not an answer") got rejected, lol. "Is this readable/artificially complex?" – "The Economist is a magazine with its own style guide." Gotcha.

4 hours later…

Lawrence

16:30

@snailplane @userr2684291 Okay, I voted to close the The Economist question. I don't think the actual question is subjective (whether university-educated native English speakers can easily understand the quote) - the answer would be 'yes' (aside: my earlier 'no' referred to the title: whether the wording was artificially complex). The reason I gave for closure is that it's not asking for a problem to solve; it's asking for support for the OP's opinion.

Anonymous

@userr2684291 It's such a bad style guide, too…

Anonymous

@Lawrence That seems fair to me.

Anonymous

ELL seems to have a lot of Economist fans. I can see being a fan of the writing, as they have at least some good writers, but the style they force on everyone through mechanical, mindless editing doesn't quite live up to those standards. They'll edit away a "split infinitive" even if it hurts the sentence. What good does that do?

Anonymous

The problem with their style is that it's applied to everything in an unthinking manner. It works out most of the time, as most style choices do, but when it fails they do it anyway because they aren't thinking about whether it's a good idea, they just want consistency above all else.

Anonymous

17:59

@userr2684291 Moderators are supposed to do a little mind reading and try to discern whether an answer was earnestly intended to be an answer. In this case, I'm not sure how I would have handled the flag, since I'm particularly bad at that sort of mind reading, but I'm having trouble seeing the connection.

Anonymous

It only makes sense to me if I conflate the Economist style with the magazine's actual writing, which I think of as two different things.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@userr2684291 if something looks like an answer, your flag would get declined

And your fault

As always

Misfit

ColleenV

@userr2684291 I downvoted that answer - I'm not sure why people are upvoting it. It's just a description of The Economist, not an answer to the question :/

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@userr2684291 think of ELL as a restaurant. "I would have a native speaker please. Preferably with extra chocolate"

Anonymous

@ColleenV I'm not sure either. I don't really think it's an answer either.

ColleenV

18:10

@duckplane I see that you have been talking to the duck...

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Heh, @duckplane

Anonymous

Little bit :-)

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

I'm warning you. That duck is a quack

Anonymous

@ColleenV It could work as an extended comment, but we already have so many comments on that Q&A.

ColleenV

@duckplane I just don't see what it would add - although I was reluctant to use my veto vote on the NAA flag

er veto is not the work I'm looking for there

Anonymous

18:12

Binding?

ColleenV

My giant diamond sledgehammer

Anonymous

Yeah, that. Giant +1 diamond sledgehammer of bindingness.

ColleenV

or that :)

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Veto binding vote

I like David Richerby

He's one of the more prudent HNQ viewers

userr2684291

18:48

Haha!

Am I the only one who fell for the duck's quackery?

Anonymous

Quack!

userr2684291

Hahah.

@duckplane Nice nickname.

I initially thought you were J.R..

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

19:20

@duckplane so next pet, ducks?

Or will you settle for SE's?

@yolosora I'm more like the grumpy uncle

Shucks. A meta discussion happened without me spreading my fantastic knowledge

@stangdon, can provide a link to documentation demonstrating that these examples are grammatical and not atrocious? This site serves no purpose if such judgements are never warranted. Worse still, the invariant be is merely a title used to describe the ungrammatical use of the verb in subcultures. It is not a defintion of acceptable grammar. Or do you propose there are no longer rules of grammar, merely explanations of usage, no matter what that usage may be? — JBH 2 days ago

Anonymous

@yolosora Hello! I didn't see your message until @M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ responded to it. Welcome to ELL chat!

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

M.A.R. has eagle eyes

Which would make @yolo the rabbit, probably

Or his message

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ this is just an amazing amount of ego

@ColleenV oranges don't have mouths

You'd be safe

@Catija the no noise policy is typically adopted as a preference though

@Lawrence this

Anonymous

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ In this case, it led to a fair amount of off-topic discussion back-and-forth in the comments, which is why a moderator saw fit to remove the noise from the post.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@duckplane I originally o.o'd at the thought of removing a TLDR or whatever, but OT comments justify it fully

What I would have done

Come on, would J-effing-R make a moderation mistake?!

Anonymous

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ That post got 40 comments.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

19:34

When you're questioning what someone did, you should step back and look at who you're questioning

Anonymous

Of which 28 were deleted.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ