[meta-comment: please avoid top-posting] On 28-Sep-10 9:56 PM, Deepa Mohan wrote:
> I did enjoy this piece, as I've done others...but let me drift the > thread straightaway, with something that disturbs me lately. To > appreciate these articles, one has to be very conversant with a lot of > extremely precise tems and phrases (eg. "recursive", "embedded > defaults" instead of "preconceptions", and so on.) Why would this disturb you? Any field has its jargon, and precision is required in order to communicate ideas without confusion. > When someone uses English with this level of skill, and expresses > original ideas, we applaud them as being very smart...what about others, > who may have the same original ideas, and are not able to express > themselves thus? The way I like to put it: "interestingness" or "thought-provokingness" of a person or thesis has 3 dimensions: * intellectual depth * erudition - in this context, an awareness of the related work in its own and related fields * the ability to be articulate - which implies both conveying the core ideas; and doing so in a manner that sparks interest in the reader. Missing out on any of the dimensions implies a corresponding loss of interestingness. > Hmm...I am not being very articulate myself...I guess I > am getting bothered (another thread, present continuous tense!) by the > elitism of English usage..... > > Does this make sense to anyone else? No. That is, I understand that you have a bee in your bonnet. But I don't understand why. Udhay -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
