Words are tricksy
Oct. 7th, 2006 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSo, I decided to try some reading off the reading list.
I'm rather annoyed about words. Words should mean something. They shouldn't have a half dozen syllables, arranged in chunks, like this, with (and only sometimes) little bits all over that pretend they explain the meaning but actually explain how they're not really meaning the same thing as that guy who the text is somehow having an argument with half a century later.
Also, when we do references we say 'this idea here'[by this dude, skip reading it if you don't want to know]. We don't say (dude, skip) and (little useful data) in the same brackets. Its such a slog to not know which bits to skip.
Uphill climbing to read this thing. Talking back at the book I was. Loudly. With intermittent threats.
And can't they just please use English?
I know russian, french, and all the rest are perfectly reasonable languages of themselves, I just don't happen to know them. If they're going to import words could they perhaps define them? At some point? Please?
And sometimes I swear this writer will use one six syllable word when two short ones will do. Its the tyranny of the word count I tell you. Not actually quicker, but fits the essay length.
I need a good subject specific dictionary type thing. I have three for cultural studies, but they only overlap the lit stuff, I think.
Also, it would be nice if the writer could just say something simple, once, on the lines of
this is a toolkit
no one tool is the whole kit
no one tool is the best tool for every job
no text only uses one tool
and no tool is only good for one text
other tools are also handy
say that up front instead of spending a paragraph at least in every chapter explaining stuff that, to me at least, translates to roughly that idea. I know there are other ways of doing it! Get on with explaining this one!
grr.
so, so far I need to look up, though I vaguely think I know some of them:
metonym (I have a definition, but I need a few examples before my brain knows it)
fabula
sjuzet
histoire
discours
recit
and a bunch of others that, to be fair, the writer only mentioned in the course of mentioning they weren't using them. Story, text and narration are used. Which I can at least pronounce, and think I understand, though the definitions are specialised here.
That part with the specialization is why I can understand using fancy words that don't mean other things. It makes sense, as long as they mean this one thing that is said right next to the word.
narrative and discourse also have specific meanings here.
okay, why does it say it "it is organized around the differentia specifica of narragive fiction {e.g. events, time, narration)."
is there any reason for putting a couple of words in there that don't appear to be English?
No.
and
"It is hoped that the reader will be encouraged to continue to explore this field, and by so doing to fill in some of these lacunae."
when the reader has hunted down a relevant dictionary, looked up 'lacunae' (I think it means gaps, but if it means gaps why doesn't it say gaps?), and maybe read a couple of less frilly books explaining the same thing before reading this one again, then perhaps exploration is possible.
At the moment exploration is cut off by mountains of bloody big words.
I don't think my vocabulary is particularly poor. I know a ton of words. Why don't I know these ones?
"the manifestations of narration are subject to the specific exigencies of the linguistic substances through which they are expressed"
... here we have a sentence where I *thought* I knew what the words meant, and yet...
er, the particular text is made from particular words? maybe?
"epistemological dialectic"
? huh ?
word thinky arguing? opposite words?
hmmm, nope, epistemological is about philosophy of knowledge, not words
so its... argue about the knowing of things?
"we are faced here with the same epistemological dialectic which binds together any opposition of the virtual and the actual (such as 'langue' vs 'parole' in Saussure"
well I at least recognise the Saussure thingy. I can look that up again.
Anyway, about then I decided this is a book for later.
I dug around further towards the back, read the bit on characterisation, and that actually makes sense. I wonder if the writer uses big words when they're nervous or something.
Result:
Find proper useful subject dictionary.
Learn more words.
also
start with the 'Beginning' book, even if it hasn't actually arrived yet.
I'm rather annoyed about words. Words should mean something. They shouldn't have a half dozen syllables, arranged in chunks, like this, with (and only sometimes) little bits all over that pretend they explain the meaning but actually explain how they're not really meaning the same thing as that guy who the text is somehow having an argument with half a century later.
Also, when we do references we say 'this idea here'[by this dude, skip reading it if you don't want to know]. We don't say (dude, skip) and (little useful data) in the same brackets. Its such a slog to not know which bits to skip.
Uphill climbing to read this thing. Talking back at the book I was. Loudly. With intermittent threats.
And can't they just please use English?
I know russian, french, and all the rest are perfectly reasonable languages of themselves, I just don't happen to know them. If they're going to import words could they perhaps define them? At some point? Please?
And sometimes I swear this writer will use one six syllable word when two short ones will do. Its the tyranny of the word count I tell you. Not actually quicker, but fits the essay length.
I need a good subject specific dictionary type thing. I have three for cultural studies, but they only overlap the lit stuff, I think.
Also, it would be nice if the writer could just say something simple, once, on the lines of
this is a toolkit
no one tool is the whole kit
no one tool is the best tool for every job
no text only uses one tool
and no tool is only good for one text
other tools are also handy
say that up front instead of spending a paragraph at least in every chapter explaining stuff that, to me at least, translates to roughly that idea. I know there are other ways of doing it! Get on with explaining this one!
grr.
so, so far I need to look up, though I vaguely think I know some of them:
metonym (I have a definition, but I need a few examples before my brain knows it)
fabula
sjuzet
histoire
discours
recit
and a bunch of others that, to be fair, the writer only mentioned in the course of mentioning they weren't using them. Story, text and narration are used. Which I can at least pronounce, and think I understand, though the definitions are specialised here.
That part with the specialization is why I can understand using fancy words that don't mean other things. It makes sense, as long as they mean this one thing that is said right next to the word.
narrative and discourse also have specific meanings here.
okay, why does it say it "it is organized around the differentia specifica of narragive fiction {e.g. events, time, narration)."
is there any reason for putting a couple of words in there that don't appear to be English?
No.
and
"It is hoped that the reader will be encouraged to continue to explore this field, and by so doing to fill in some of these lacunae."
when the reader has hunted down a relevant dictionary, looked up 'lacunae' (I think it means gaps, but if it means gaps why doesn't it say gaps?), and maybe read a couple of less frilly books explaining the same thing before reading this one again, then perhaps exploration is possible.
At the moment exploration is cut off by mountains of bloody big words.
I don't think my vocabulary is particularly poor. I know a ton of words. Why don't I know these ones?
"the manifestations of narration are subject to the specific exigencies of the linguistic substances through which they are expressed"
... here we have a sentence where I *thought* I knew what the words meant, and yet...
er, the particular text is made from particular words? maybe?
"epistemological dialectic"
? huh ?
word thinky arguing? opposite words?
hmmm, nope, epistemological is about philosophy of knowledge, not words
so its... argue about the knowing of things?
"we are faced here with the same epistemological dialectic which binds together any opposition of the virtual and the actual (such as 'langue' vs 'parole' in Saussure"
well I at least recognise the Saussure thingy. I can look that up again.
Anyway, about then I decided this is a book for later.
I dug around further towards the back, read the bit on characterisation, and that actually makes sense. I wonder if the writer uses big words when they're nervous or something.
Result:
Find proper useful subject dictionary.
Learn more words.
also
start with the 'Beginning' book, even if it hasn't actually arrived yet.