{"id":2357,"date":"2011-06-11T06:33:14","date_gmt":"2011-06-11T05:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/?p=2357"},"modified":"2011-06-11T06:33:14","modified_gmt":"2011-06-11T05:33:14","slug":"re-bertrand-russells-how-i-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/2011\/06\/re-bertrand-russells-how-i-write\/","title":{"rendered":"Re: Bertrand Russell&#8217;s How I write"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I think Russell gives some sensible advice in his short (3 pages) essay <em>How I write<\/em>. It can be found <a href=\"http:\/\/www.davemckay.co.uk\/philosophy\/russell\/russell.php?name=how.i.write\">on the net<\/a> and in <a href=\"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/The-Basic-Writings-of-Bertrand-Russell.pdf\">this nice collection of Russell&#8217;s works<\/a>. Here is the relevant part:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#8220;There are some simple maxims-not perhaps quite so  simple as those which my brother-in-law Logan Pearsall Smith offered  me-which I think might be commanded to writers of expository prose.  First: never use a long word if a short word will do. Second: if you  want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of  the qualifications in separate sentences. Third: do not let the  beginning of your sentence lead the reader to an expectation which is  contradicted by the end. Take, say, such a sentence as the following,  which might occur in a work on sociology: \u201cHuman beings are completely  exempt from undesirable behaviour-patterns only when certain  prerequisites, not satisfied except in a small percentage of actual  cases, have, through some fortuitous concourse of favourable  circumstances, whether congenital or environmental, chanced to combine  in producing an individual in whom many factors deviate from the norm in  a socially advantageous manner\u201d. Let us see if we can translate this  sentence into English. I suggest the following: \u201cAll men are scoundrels,  or at any rate almost all. The men who are not must have had unusual  luck, both in their birth and in their upbringing.\u201d This is shorter and  more intelligible, and says just the same thing. But I am afraid any  professor who used the second sentence instead of the first would get  the sack.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I think the first two are excellent advice and I am not sure about the last one. Perhaps because I am unable to find a good example. His own (fictitious) example also differs in other important aspects, such as being contrary to both advice #1 and #2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I think Russell gives some sensible advice in his short (3 pages) essay How I write. It can be found on the net and in this nice collection of Russell&#8217;s works. Here is the relevant part: &#8220;There are some simple maxims-not perhaps quite so simple as those which my brother-in-law Logan Pearsall Smith offered me-which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1683,1682,1681,1680],"class_list":["post-2357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-advice","tag-bertrans-russell","tag-clear","tag-writing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2359,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357\/revisions\/2359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}