[HN Gopher] Being a Fast, Cogent Writer Is Useful
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Being a Fast, Cogent Writer Is Useful
Author : luu
Score : 11 points
Date : 2024-03-09 18:45 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (v5.chriskrycho.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (v5.chriskrycho.com)
| f5ve wrote:
| Nothing makes for more cogent writing than using the word
| _cogent_ incorrectly in your own title. It is said of reasoning
| or arguments -- not individuals. If you 're going to go out of
| your way to talk about what a good writer you are the least you
| could do is proofread your own post.
| timeagain wrote:
| Boo. Sure it's probably wrong to call someone "cogent". But is
| there such a huge difference between saying "Harry has cogent
| writing" and "Harry is a cogent writer"? Is the reader confused
| about the meaning?
|
| I might use "prosaic", "flowery", or "confusing" in the same
| way, even though strictly speaking those words are describing
| the writing and not the writer.
| skylurk wrote:
| Even if the meaning gets across, the latter is a less cogent
| sentence.
| tptacek wrote:
| In addition to this being pretty mean-spirited, I'm also fairly
| certain it's wrong. I have no trouble coming up with examples
| of the adjective "cogent" modifying a noun indicating a person;
| you can quickly find one such example ("one of the most cogent
| writers") in the archives of The Atlantic, and all over Google
| Scholar. I dug through every usage of the word "cogent" in the
| New Yorker and, while it took awhile, I did find a couple.
| Alas, there was no section in Garner's Usage Dictionary
| covering the use of the word, presumably because there's
| nothing controversial about it.
|
| I think the jury is pretty well in: obviously, the word
| "cogent" describes the expression of an idea or an argument,
| not a person, directly, but idiomatically, a "cogent writer" is
| simply one who produces cogent output.
| ImaCake wrote:
| Wholeheartedly agree with this reply. Attacking grammar is
| only very, very rarely the right move. It's most useful as a
| distraction akin to an ad hominem attack. Everyone knows what
| is meant by the author even if they don't know the dictionary
| definition of cogent.
| jyunwai wrote:
| To clear this up once and for all, we can refer to the much-
| respected Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
|
| The current definitions are: "1.a. Constraining, impelling;
| powerful, forcible."; "1.b. esp. Having power to compel assent
| or belief; argumentatively forcible, convincing."; and "1.c.
| [as part of certain] dependent [phrases]."
|
| A historical definition of "cogent" was: "Of persons: Employing
| force or compulsion, peremptory. Obsolete. rare," which
| includes an example phrase from 1672 that demonstrates this
| usage as a descriptor for people.
|
| This confirms that "cogent" is no longer a strictly valid
| descriptor for people according to the OED, though this usage
| was once valid in the past. However, I agree with other readers
| that this doesn't take away from the article's substance, which
| draws from the author's experience in software.
|
| [1] (Paywalled)
| https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cogent_adj?tl=true
| tptacek wrote:
| The OED can say whatever it likes, but if it invalidates
| "cogent" as a description for an actor rather than their
| actions, it disagrees with modern usage, and is thus itself,
| in a word, wrong.
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| This is one of those "duh" concepts that are hard but very high
| ROI.
|
| The whole "become a better writer" is great, the benchmark IMO is
| when you start to accumulate reusable nuggets like
| https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes
|
| Well crafted writing can be leveraged and re packaged for
| multiple purposes.
|
| And even if you only ever write for yourself remember "Better
| note-taking" misses the point; what matters is "better thinking"
|
| https://notes.andymatuschak.org/zAf4oNSV9qB38ncSvYEZGAb
|
| The articles on this stuff are all missing the "how" though.
|
| So how do you get better?
| ImaCake wrote:
| Having fast code is essentially the same principle applied to
| programming. If I am developing, testing, or debugging stuff that
| can be slow it is worth the effort to make the run time as short
| as possible. I will truncate test data or use the debugger to run
| only the section of code I am interested in.
|
| What I am saying is well known and obvious, the trick is to
| remember to do it when you need it! It's very easy to slip into
| thinking you will only need to run your 3min runtime code a few
| times to fix the bug and then end up spending hours on the
| problem.
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