The Typo Generation Is Damaging Literature

(metropolitanreview.org)

20 points | by bryanrasmussen 2 days ago

12 comments

  • whyage 2 minutes ago
    From the book author's bio: "PERCIVAL EVERETT is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC"
  • EmX_3000 9 minutes ago
    They're talking about written communication, not literature. Literature is written communication that endures, has meaning, is canonical. Writing, even if published on paper, prose or poetry, isn't literature automatically. It can become literature if it's of high quality and provokes thought, communicates important ideas, captures ephemera. Eventually.
  • wccrawford 28 minutes ago
    "none of these typos, with the exception of the jammed-together dialogue, prohibit access to meaning"

    I hear that excuse constantly on the web if I try to correct people. And maybe it doesn't "prohibit access", but it does force me to think about things that aren't the point of the message, in order to figure out the point of the message.

    I've given up correcting people. I'm old enough now that it's time to just watch people's choices come back on them. The whole world will pay for it, and I've done what I can.

    I can't even get people to stop using "weary" to mean "wary". That's a whole different meaning, and there are so many people that use it wrong.

    • 8note 1 minute ago
      i don't know how much of it has been thrown out/superceded, but Thinking Fast and Slow would suggest it actually makes you slow down to think about the material, rather than jumping past.

      "Force you to think" as long as the meaning isnt changed, isnt a bad thing

  • dsign 30 minutes ago
    It's LLM-allergies.

    The best fully-human writers of the next generation will be those who are very conscientious at grammar class and master all the rules, because by breaking them, they'll be able to push their prose to the most remote and unlikely locales in the geodesics of LLM-next-token-prediction-probability space. Such places where the Machines deign not trudge.

  • mxfh 2 minutes ago
    tldr; nobody pays for editors and more than automated proofreading anymore for any form of printed matter. Used to be worthwile that unintentional ambiguities and errors can be cleared up or left in, when at least a second pair of eyes goes over a text. This should help the reader not take anything away from the authors intent.
  • monarchwadia 7 minutes ago
    The straitjacketed "correctness" that's policemongered by dictionaries and spell-checkers, is a sandbrained illusion. Make more typos; nurture neologisms; disregard dignity. It's a ratp.
  • flippyhead 21 minutes ago
    and omg people that type without capitializing anything wtf i hate them
  • underlipton 26 minutes ago
    People who say "up" or "upped" instead of "rise" or "raise" or "rose". Straight to jail.
  • metalman 16 minutes ago
    2brnt2bthtisth?
  • boothby 56 minutes ago
    My hottest take of the era: LLM voice is perfect grammar and spelling. What’s going to damage Literature?
    • emil-lp 34 minutes ago
      > What’s going to damage Literature?

      Probably LLMs.

  • kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 44 minutes ago
    > the same story (with an identically worded bulletin)

    Well....

    https://youtu.be/ksb3KD6DfSI

  • shevy-java 35 minutes ago
    Again! Another website that annoys visitors with slide-in widgets click-to-continue. So, my perma-ban list of websites grows. Now I need to find an extension to block websites that use those slide-ins ...
    • bborrez 11 minutes ago
      Use uMatrix. Allow all 1st-party except scripts. Allow substackcdn.com's CSS and images. Block everything else. Problem solved.
    • emil-lp 35 minutes ago
      Can't you just use reader mode like everyone else?