[Dragaera] Striving towards Paarfiction...

[Jerry Friedman]

Sorry about the duplicate post, Jot.  I still hate the reply
default.

--- Jot Powers <books at bofh.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 04:13:10PM -0800, Davdi Silverrock wrote:
> > A very minor rearrangement of words:
> > 
> > "the simple garment that you see before you, which, you perceive, is
> > much like a plain buttonless short tunic of sadly cheap and common
> > fabric: this very shirt."
> > 
> > Better? Worse?
> 
> I like this better.  The previous version had:
> 
> "[...] tunic: this very shirt."
> 
> Having tunic and shirt right next to each other seemed redundant.

Also, the point of the description is or should be to say why
the speaker doesn't like the souvenir.  "Buttonless", "plain",
"distinguishable from an undergarment only by the text you are
doing me the honor of reading", etc., can do that; "tunic"
doesn't.

I realized at some point that some of my disagreements with
others on this committee (as Jot Powers put it) are because
others are imagining Paarfi as the speaker, while I'm imagining
the wearer of the T-shirt as someone who speaks like a
character in Paarfi.

> The spacing here is better.
> 
> I'm not sure "much like" is necessary.

Indeed all you need to do is make the text a few times longer
than "My parents went to..."  Imho, you don't have to be as
verbose /as possible/, still less to say something two or three
times.  (I think I've said that three times now.)
 
By the way, no hits on "whilst" at Book Search.  It's an unusual
word for an American writer.  (Of course, so are "grey" and
"arse", and a few Americans do use "whilst".)

> I'm also not sure that spending more committee time is going to 
> improve it.  :)
> 
> It may in fact be time to determine whether or not the best course
> of action is to remain, pondering the imponderables, whilst atop the
> chamber vessel, or perhaps instead it is time to consider the duties
> that brought us there, complete them, and move on with the rest of
> our business.

Now that I've put in my last two cents, I agree.  Soon it should
reach a point where no one will alter even one anglicized letter
that represents minimality, being the smallest letter of the Greek
alphabet.

Jerry Friedman


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