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RE: Examples of good English.
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Paul Magnussen
Posts: 1802
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
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RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)
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quote:
That is a terrific piece of humbug. You could replace 'menu items' with heroin,socks,banjo's,earwax.......and still you wouldn't be lying. OK then, since you prefer to be serious: how about this one? It is often stated that we owe much to originality, creativity and imaginative innovation, and value it highly; I suggest that only the first part of the sentence is true. We owe much to creativity, but we seem to value it only in hindsight. There are many horrifying stories in the history of science and art about the fate of the innovator; I have mentioned some of them already, like that of Semmelweiss. But that is all history, readers may say; nowadays we worship the great minds who create new theories, new works of art, new concepts. This has not been my experience. The major grant-giving bodies tend to support routine work that can safely be predicted to have positive outcomes; they shy away from true novelty. Novelty emerges from an individual mind; when it is judged by a committee, orthodoxy will usually prevail. H.J. Eysenck, Genius
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Date May 30 2013 0:35:32
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guitarbuddha
Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007
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RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen quote:
That is a terrific piece of humbug. You could replace 'menu items' with heroin,socks,banjo's,earwax.......and still you wouldn't be lying. OK then, since you prefer to be serious: how about this one? It is often stated that we owe much to originality, creativity and imaginative innovation, and value it highly; I suggest that only the first part of the sentence is true. We owe much to creativity, but we seem to value it only in hindsight. There are many horrifying stories in the history of science and art about the fate of the innovator; I have mentioned some of them already, like that of Semmelweiss. But that is all history, readers may say; nowadays we worship the great minds who create new theories, new works of art, new concepts. This has not been my experience. The major grant-giving bodies tend to support routine work that can safely be predicted to have positive outcomes; they shy away from true novelty. Novelty emerges from an individual mind; when it is judged by a committee, orthodoxy will usually prevail. H.J. Eysenck, Genius Another worthy musing. It is too easy to say that a clique/committee is the enemy of the artist. They are also often the enemy of their own growth. Often people band together and share favours based on the ability to support each other in foolishness, shallowness, meanness and intellectual laziness masquerading as orthodoxy. And they begin to believe that their proximity to this orthodoxy is in fact evidence in itself of superiority. But it is hard to stay creative on that path. For if one believes oneself to be 'finished' where is the originality. Like you said Paul, better to appear a splendid fellow. Never challenge a man who might get you work. D.
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Date May 30 2013 0:55:41
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3423
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)
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At a meeting at Kwajalein, the room was nearly full, about fifty people waiting for mission planning presentations to begin. i was seated in my usual spot on the front row. A young computer programmer who worked for MIT Lincoln Laboratory came in. She was bright and pretty. One of the younger guys spoke up, "There's a seat here." She answered, "Thanks, i'm going to sit next to Richard. Maybe some of that intelligence will rub off on me." I assumed she was avoiding showing favoritism among potential suitors, and was currying favor with an authority figure, but it occurred to me to reply, "All of the planet's serious problems are due to the over-development of the human cerebral cortex." Of all the things I have said during a long and talkative life, it's the only one I find the least bit memorable. We admire facility, of which there is a pretty good supply, but wisdom is scarce, and scarcely appreciated. RNJ
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Date May 30 2013 3:35:37
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3423
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Examples of good English. (in reply to guitarbuddha)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: guitarbuddha Hey Richard I like that last bit much much more than the quote. Maybe wisdom, like great art escapes from us unawares when we strive for sincerity. The other ....were you reading a lot of Asimov a the time ? Taking pride in the things which escape when one pushes is.......very strange It had been decades since I picked up a book by Asimov. I had lived for years within a day's sailing time of an environment which the tiny population still had not the power to seriously modify. I lived on a high tech military base loaded with the latest technology, golf courses, manicured lawns, airports, industrialized harbors, the whole air-conditioned American shtick. A few times a year I visited the great howling metropolises of modernism, Bangkok, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Boston, Washington...did you know that Bangkok has more buildings over 30 meters high than any U.S. city except New York? The group was well suffused with intellectual pride: Engineers, technicians, computer scientists from places like MIT, Stanford, Georgia Tech..the prime producers of tech talent. I instantly felt that some sort of falsely modest rejoinder to the young woman's flattery was required by the group's pretended egalitarianism. But I was a little surprised when what came out of my mouth was actually worth saying. RNJ
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Date May 30 2013 15:23:52
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