Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (
More info?)
On 2 Jun 2005 00:09:29 GMT, Billy Shears <w.ramey@comcast.net> wrote:
>In article <d7fr2q0iq0@news4.newsguy.com>, pmedeco@aol.com
>wrote:
>
>> Billy,
>>
>> Thanks for offering your literary suggestion.
>>
>> I don't use asterisks in my RAH posts as a tool to express emphasis,
>> but to express a degree of irony or even sarcasm.
>
>But using asterisks for that is like having to explain a joke.
>The moment is gone.
Not at all, the alternative is bold or italics, a common literery
device, but that's often not supported on screen fonts. Using aterisks
for emphasis is absolutely *not* like having to explain a joke. When
you read the text, does not an asterisked word *sound* louder in your
head?
>> In my opinion, if anyone believes that their writing is enhanced by any
>> particular writing technique or style, then they should go ahead and
>> use it.
>
>Really? So you don't mind ALL CAPS? R U shure your bein
>consistant hear?
All caps is regerded as 'shouting', and hence rude, but if it conveys
the writer's mood, then I guess it serves its purpose.
>
>> As long as what you are saying is clear, that is all that
>> matters.
Indeed, and while I am not 'text fluent', U R likely 2 no what I
mean, and texting has the great advantage for *any* written language
of being terse - a noted feature of English, BTW.
Could 160 characters of text be the modern Haiku?
>But having a *bunch* of *asterisks* buzzing around can *mask* the
>*clarity* of the *thought* by putting obstacles in the reader's
>way.
It certainly can when you place emphasis in the wrong place, but the
sentence above would sound just as stupid if you *spoke* it with that
ridiculous emphasis, so what's your point?
>> Meanwhile, a reader owes it to himself (not to the writer) to focus on
>> what is being expressed, and to resist their own prejudices regarding
>> how it is expressed.
>
>There is no such obligation. A reader reads for his own purposes,
>and may well be moved to deliver a comment on what he sees as a
>dismal tendency in Usenet prose.
He may of course show himself to be an illiterate fool by so doing,
but as you say, it's his choice.................
>Hey, try this on for clarity:
>
>FOURSCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO OUR FATHERS BROUGHT FORTH ON *THIS*
>CONTINENT A *NEW* NATION, CONCEIVED IN *LIBERTY* AND DEDICATED TO
>THE PROPOSITION THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED *EQUAL*
.
Hmm, you'll strain your voice shouting *THAT* loud all day!
>NOW WE ARE ENGAGED IN A GREAT CIVIL WAR
, TESTING WHETHER THAT
>NATION OR ANY NATION SO CONCEIVED AND SO DEDICATED CAN LONG
>ENDURE. WE ARE MET ON A **GREAT** BATTLEFIELD OF THAT WAR. WE
>HAVE COME TO DEDICATE A PORTION OF IT AS A FINAL RESTING PLACE
>FOR THOSE WHO *DIED*
HERE, THAT THE NATION MIGHT *LIVE*
.
>THIS WE MAY, IN ALL PROPRIETY *DO*. BUT IN A LARGER SENSE, WE
>*CANNOT* DEDICATE, WE *CANNOT* CONSECRATE, WE *CANNOT* HALLOW
>THIS GROUND.
. . . ALL IMHO OF COURSE.
47 Main Street, Gettysburg, one of the *great* addresses!
BTW, an emoticon is always read with an implicit pause, so shouldn't
have been used after *DIED*, as it breaks the flow.
--
Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering
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