Pet Peeve rants.

Krisken

Krisken

Huh. Here I thought that people preferred an occasional "as well as" instead of always reading "and". I never felt like I was padding my papers when I switched up my phrasing. Maybe it seemed like it from the other side and I never knew it.
 
Mathias

Mathias

fade said:
It's not necessarily wrong. I think too many people are rapping knuckles with the "No Passive Voice" stick. Sometimes it's appropriate. Chaining 10 passive sentences together on the other hand is professor-grade sedative. I think a bigger problem is padding and prepositional phrase chaining. Dear students, stop using "as well as" instead of "and", etc. And stop writing sentences like, "The measurement of the length of the grain of the mineral in the rock from the basin in the Gulf of Mexico." That sentence is like 3 times longer than it should be.
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That's been a problem for my students as well. I think it stems from English Lit classes teaching them to flower their sentences with padded bullshit. That's just the way that field is. Science requires you to pack a butt-ton of information in as few words as possible.
Added at: 11:46
Krisken said:
Huh. Here I thought that people preferred an occasional "as well as" instead of always reading "and". I never felt like I was padding my papers when I switched up my phrasing. Maybe it seemed like it from the other side and I never knew it.
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Not in science. Science papers are boring as fuck as a result.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
I find "as well as" and "in order to" uncomfortable, both in speech and writing. I've seen plenty of interesting science papers that are written very conversationally, too. There's a difference between a conversational style and stodgy padding, though.
 
Tress

Tress

Mathias said:
That's been a problem for my students as well. I think it stems from English Lit classes teaching them to flower their sentences with padded bullshit. That's just the way that field is. Science requires you to pack a butt-ton of information in as few words as possible. Not in science. Science papers are boring as fuck as a result.
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Well, it works well for English papers. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that students need to learn that different fields require different writing styles.
 
Gusto

Gusto

My high scool essays were always prized for being lucid and concise. :D

I think it's because I tended to write them last minute or in exam scenarios, so they'd be fairly stream-of-consciousness.
 
Mathias

Mathias

Tress said:
Well, it works well for English papers. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that students need to learn that different fields require different writing styles.
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Not really. Any sort of writing that gets padded with purple prose and other shit generally sucks.
 
Tress

Tress

Mathias said:
Not really. Any sort of writing that gets padded with purple prose and other shit generally sucks.
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There's a difference between purple prose and using stylistic choices like passive voice on occasion.

Another pet peeve: science and math majors who smugly prop up their own academic fields while trashing humanities.*

*I'm not saying you're doing this right now, it just reminded me of another recent incident
 
Krisken

Krisken

What makes LotR painful to read is that he'll spend 5 pages talking about the fucking trees. That's hardly the same as varying the word choice.
 
Tress

Tress

I think I'm talking about something completely different from the rest of you now. I agree that purple prose is terrible.
 
Krisken

Krisken

I know in general we agree that going into painfully boring detail and being descriptive to the point of distraction is bad form. On that I agree with Mathias and Mind Detective. I just think that being clinical to the point of being dry can be just as painful.
 
LittleSin

LittleSin

I'm trying to think of a book thats kind of 'poetic' but also clinical and some times cold or dispassionate.

The first one i find myself thinking or is Night by Eli Wiesel.
 
MindDetective

MindDetective

Krisken said:
I know in general we agree that going into painfully boring detail and being descriptive to the point of distraction is bad form. On that I agree with Mathias and Mind Detective. I just think that being clinical to the point of being dry can be just as painful.
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Hey, I'm with you! I try to take my lessons on scientific writing from short prose. Keep it concise and interesting (but also complete and honest).
 
fade

fade

Staff member
MindDetective said:
Hey, I'm with you! I try to take my lessons on scientific writing from short prose. Keep it concise and interesting (but also complete and honest).
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I totally agree. Like I said, I love conversationally written papers. I know several authors in my field whose papers are actually fun to read. That doesn't necessarily mean purple prose or the like. An example of conversational style might be: "Now consider the often-maligned role the atmospheric electric field plays in collection of field data...." versus "Data as well as additional effects of fields originating from the environment must be considered in order to understand..."
 
Baerdog

Baerdog

I just got back from Vienna (which was amazing) with another pet peeve: large groups of less than punctual people which take forever to assemble, come to a consensus, and get moving. It really displeases me to be standing around after the supposed meeting time watching the minutes tick by while people are still getting their shit together/figuring out what the plan even is/flirting with whomever. Give me three other punctual people and we'll be able to tour an entire city in a weekend. Make me do it with twenty? We'll barely see the outside of the hostel.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
YES. Totally. I cannot stand endless debate. I really hate it when the debate starts to circulate around and repeat. Any group involving the moms of elementary age kids seems to do this. It's actually the reason I'm probably not leading a cub scout den next year. I can't bear the leader meetings, which usually involve discussing the same one topic over and over. "Who is bringing the cups Monday?" "I am".. (three minutes of dull conversation).."Who is bringing the cups Monday?" ...
 
J

Jiarn

Krisken said:
What makes LotR painful to read is that he'll spend 5 pages talking about the fucking trees. That's hardly the same as varying the word choice.
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Well trees, and walking... then walking trees....
 
Baerdog

Baerdog

fade said:
YES. Totally. I cannot stand endless debate. I really hate it when the debate starts to circulate around and repeat. Any group involving the moms of elementary age kids seems to do this. It's actually the reason I'm probably not leading a cub scout den next year. I can't bear the leader meetings, which usually involve discussing the same one topic over and over. "Who is bringing the cups Monday?" "I am".. (three minutes of dull conversation).."Who is bringing the cups Monday?" ...
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Blugh, oh yeah.

I really think four people is the perfect sized group for when you are going to be out and about. You can make decisions quickly, keep track of each other, get into a restaurant easily, etc. Six is and alright number too. Once you hit eight people you run into issues with the group being too big and you may as well just split into two fours.
 
Krisken

Krisken

Baerdog said:
Blugh, oh yeah.

I really think four people is the perfect sized group for when you are going to be out and about. You can make decisions quickly, keep track of each other, get into a restaurant easily, etc. Six is and alright number too. Once you hit eight people you run into issues with the group being too big and you may as well just split into two fours.
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Yup. Anyone who has run a role playing group knows this is truth.
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

It was my Social Niece's first trip to the zoo. Several of my friend's extended family of friends wanted to see her see the animals for the first time. So we had 3 couples and a child. When we were done we tried to go eat out together.

First person "I don't care where we eat." (for now on refered to as I Don't Care)

I say, there's a great Vietnamese Restaurant, Kim Sung, about 3 blocks from here.

I Don't Care: "I don't feel like Vietnamese."

There's the Hunan Dragon $5 a plate and free drinks.

I Don't Care: "No, no oriental food."

Drexler's BBQ, we may even see Clyde there.

I Don't Care: "No, I don't want BBQ."

We can go to the Jolly-Science (Jalisciencia) for tacos and burritos.

I Don't Care: "Not in the mood for Mexican..."

What do you want?

I Don't Care: "I don't care"

She shot down 15 suggestions for good food. Then she chose Landry's a bloody chain restaurant in the sub-urbs instead of the fine inexpensive choices for 5 star food in Houston. At Landry's I ordered the Stir Fry Muscles and was served a large bowl of soup, for $25. I was not pleased.
 
J

Jiarn

I Don't Care = Typical Generic Braindead Female

Women with a brain will normally pick for themselves ahead of time, or will be open to good suggestions.
 
Krisken

Krisken

You should have said "Shut up, you said you didn't care." Then taken her to a place that would have made a goat puke.
 
J

Jiarn

My girlfriend used to do that all the time. I'll now ask her, if she says "anything", I stop asking and drive where I want to. Works out just fine.
 
Cajungal

Cajungal

Staff member
The fella always wants me to choose the restaurant because, if it were up to him, we'd always hit the same 3 places. I always want him to choose because he's way pickier than I am. I can find something good anywhere. When I have my own place, we'll be able to cook more often anyway.
 
J

Jiarn

I just want my SO to choose, because I'll enjoy anywhere we go and I want her to have what she really wants. When she has something specific in mind, thankfully, she tells me. If not, I choose and she typically enjoys herself.
 
M

makare

I like it when other people pick. I'll usually tell them places I definitely won't eat and then they can pick anywhere else. I generally don't get hungry for specific things so anywhere is fine.I even went to a place that sells nothing but stir fry and found stuff I liked.

Although sometimes I have trouble when I let others pick. My friend Debbie wanted to go to Five Guys so we did. Later, like days later, I was talking about how I generally don't care for burgers. although not in a reference to the dinner at Five Guys. and she felt bad. I told her it was fine which it was. In the end as long as the food isn't awful it's not a big deal.
 
Cajungal

Cajungal

Staff member
If I ever have a pet peeve moment concerning what we're going to eat, it's because the place where we went is more concerned with turnover than with making the customer feel comfortable. Enter Chili's--the worst culprit. Jake NEVER asks to go there even though he really likes their burgers. So I went with him this weekend. I couldn't even enjoy my meal, because the damn woman asked me 10 times if I was "still working on that" when I was clearly still eating. She came back every 20 seconds (I counted) at the beginning of the meal when I couldn't figure out what I wanted. Auuuuugh.

The payoff was getting to see him happily enjoy his burger, though. ^_^ He's gone to numerous sushi places with me where their cooked food was an afterthought and wasn't that good, so I owed him big time.
 
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