Victims of Verbosity

[_angsty]

I have been considering this very topic of late myself. Since thoroughly enjoying John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces," I've been seeing the very spirit of Ignatius J. Reilly manifest in the words of various apologetic personalities across the Internet. At least they seem to enjoy themselves, if few others do.

[Guest]

He (Elder Maxwell, not droopy) was a Sunday School teacher way back when in the East Millcreek Seventh Ward. He used to practice on us kids and several of us would get dizzy and fall off our chairs. (Mormon Urban Legend) I think his highest percentage of kids on the floor was half the class one day.

[_Kishkumen]

I think you all are a little hard on Daniel Peterson. I think he writes well. I may not always like the subject or agree with his position, but he is a talented writer, I think. So much of this is subjective.

Droopy, on the other hand, is not so talented as Daniel.

Still, I have had genuine fun reading passages of Droopy's writing. Again, I often abhor the position he is taking, but I appreciate the joy he takes in lavishing his posts with a surfeit of words.

It may not make him a great writer, but I sometimes appreciate it in contrast with some of the other things that pass as written expression around here.

[_Cicero]

I think you all are a little hard on Daniel Peterson. I think he writes well. I may not always like the subject or agree with his position, but he is a talented writer, I think. So much of this is subjective.

Droopy, on the other hand, is not so talented as Daniel.

Still, I have had genuine fun reading passages of Droopy's writing. Again, I often abhor the position he is taking, but I appreciate the joy he takes in lavishing his posts with a surfeit of words.

It may not make him a great writer, but I sometimes appreciate it in contrast with some of the other things that pass as written expression around here.

Good points Kish. There is no doubt that we all sometimes conflate the quality of someone's position with the quality of their writing, and while they are not mutually exclusive, they are not equivalent either.

With both Dan Peterson and Droopy (and Bill Hamblin), it is their arrogance and tendencies towards personal attacks that irks me much more than the quality of their prose.

[_Bob Loblaw]

I think you all are a little hard on Daniel Peterson. I think he writes well. I may not always like the subject or agree with his position, but he is a talented writer, I think. So much of this is subjective.

Droopy, on the other hand, is not so talented as Daniel.

Still, I have had genuine fun reading passages of Droopy's writing. Again, I often abhor the position he is taking, but I appreciate the joy he takes in lavishing his posts with a surfeit of words.

It may not make him a great writer, but I sometimes appreciate it in contrast with some of the other things that pass as written expression around here.

I wasn't thinking of Daniel Peterson with this thread as he does have a certain style and wit. Droopy's posts are indeed entertaining sometimes.

[_consiglieri]

I knew to whom you were referring from the outset, Bob. I just meant to infer based upon my own experience, that perhaps, his writing sounds like poetry to him.

Imply.

[_consiglieri]

As a teenager I loved Neal A. Maxwell's talks. He had such a facility with language, I thought, and his words were so profound to me. But as I got older I realized that his language was deliberately ornamental, with embellishes and flourishes where none was needed. Take the following paragraph, for example:

Unfortunately, I agree with you. I say "unfortunately" because Elder Maxwell seemed to have been an outstanding human being, which is of course what counts rather than his mode of expression.

Even while he was still with us, I would marvel at how erudite and spiritual Mormons thought his messages.

It was a classic case of form over substance, proving that alliteration is not an apostle's best friend.

Nor intransitive verbs in triplicate.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_Droopy]

As a teenager I loved Neal A. Maxwell's talks. He had such a facility with language, I thought, and his words were so profound to me. But as I got older I realized that his language was deliberately ornamental, with embellishes and flourishes where none was needed. Take the following paragraph, for example:

We must look carefully, therefore, not only at life’s large defining moments but also at the seemingly small moments. Even small acts and brief conversations count, if only incrementally, in the constant shaping of souls, in the strategic swirl of people and principles and tactical situations. What will we bring to all of those moments small and large? Will we do what we can to make our presence count as a needed constant in such fleeting moments, even in micro ways? Do you and I not sometimes say appreciatively of individuals who have helped us, “They were there when we needed them”? Will we reciprocate?

This is a messy way of saying "What we do and say matters in our spiritual development, whether it appears small or large."

I was reminded of Maxwell--and one of our more pretentiously verbose posters here--when I ran across this quote from Dickens's "David Copperfield":

Mr. Micawber had a relish in this formal piling up of words, which, however ludicrously displayed in his case, was, I must say, not at all peculiar to him. I have observed it, in the course of my life, in numbers of men. It seems to me to be a general rule. In the taking of legal oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy themselves mightily when they come to several good words in succession, for the expression of one idea; as, that they utterly detest, abominate, and abjure, or so forth; and the old anathemas were made relishing on the same principle. We talk about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannize over them too; we are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries on state occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, the meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary consideration, if there be but a great parade of them. And as individuals get into trouble by making too great a show of liveries, or as slaves when they are too numerous rise against their masters, so I think I could mention a nation that has got into many great difficulties, and will get into many greater, from maintaining too large a retinue of words.

There is nothing impressive in multiplying words, particularly adjectives. It just makes people look ridiculous.

The only thing ridiculous here is that your reading comprehension, appreciation and understanding of the potential and possibilities of the English language, imagination, and intellectual depth was effectively halted somewhere between 7th and 8th grade, along with a large number of the other Eloi of whom you are a poster child.

Gutter, meet snipe.

[_consiglieri]

The only thing ridiculous here is that your reading comprehension, appreciation and understanding of the potential and possibilities of the English language, imagination, and intellectual depth was effectively halted somewhere between 7th and 8th grade, along with a large number of the other Eloi of whom you are a poster child.

Gutter, meet snipe.

Stop victimizing me.

[_Droopy]

The only thing ridiculous here is that your reading comprehension, appreciation and understanding of the potential and possibilities of the English language, imagination, and intellectual depth was effectively halted somewhere between 7th and 8th grade, along with a large number of the other Eloi of whom you are a poster child.

Gutter, meet snipe.

Stop victimizing me.

I'll victimize you at the slightest provocation.