[LINK] How the Climate Kids Are Short-Circuiting Right-Wing Media

Karl Auer kauer at biplane.com.au
Sun Oct 6 10:59:45 AEDT 2019


On Sun, 2019-10-06 at 08:41 +1100, Tom Worthington wrote:
> Ms. Thunberg's message was very carefully crafted, with
> sophistication underlying its apparent simplicity.
> [...]

I (sort of) disagree. People start out able to say what they mean, and
learn (or are taught) to communicate poorly. Children are generally
pretty damn clear. I suspect Thunberg's message might be clear because
she *doesn't* do too much crafting...

There's is an art to deciding what to say and what to leave out. But
how to say it? Take out everything that gets in the way. Shorten
sentences. Get rid of padding. Drop the impressive adjectives. Use the
right words, not the longest words. Get to the nub of it.

Kids do all that naturally, until we teach them not to.

We as adults find it hard to do. We have spent our lives learning (or
being taught) to cover our arses. We try to impress. Whole scientific
papers are written in the passive voice just to avoid mentioning the
author. Politicians smother their messages in Latin derivatives because
they think it gives their words more weight. We utilise instead of use,
we require instead of need, we negatively impact instead of hurt.

   "The initial activity decided upon by the
    primary stakeholder at the inception of
    the construction phase was to arrange more
    suitable illumination of the site; the
    proposed activity was duly carried out,
    resulting in the required level of 
    illumination being achieved."

Regards, K.

-- 
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Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://twitter.com/kauer389

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