tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post5939281118425514141..comments2024-03-19T02:31:02.140-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Are the English better at English?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger220125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-30276157966019375062012-06-12T07:56:28.971-07:002012-06-12T07:56:28.971-07:00http://fora.tv/2007/09/25/Film_Historian_David_Tho...http://fora.tv/2007/09/25/Film_Historian_David_Thomson_on_Hollywood<br /><br />Brits better writers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-67790364922567842542012-06-11T07:41:38.037-07:002012-06-11T07:41:38.037-07:00Re: Kylie:
His work is full of similar humor, sub...Re: Kylie:<br /><br /><i>His work is full of similar humor, subtle and circuitous maybe but very pointed</i>.<br /><br />I find it stilted and laboured myself, but <i>de gustibus</i> etc etc. That said, it does pretty well disprove all of these people claiming that Americans have a direct, unadorned, plainspoken literary style. That is about the farthest thing possible from the truth.Balfegorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08012196656096263507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-31038426356671043012012-06-10T20:43:54.818-07:002012-06-10T20:43:54.818-07:00"Simon: They do (mostly) dry your hands, thou..."Simon: They do (mostly) dry your hands, though not without buffeting both your hands where thousands of other hands have been buffeted before."<br /><br />And I thought I was the only one who noticed. I tried several times to keep my hands from being blown into the surface of the air outlets, but i couldn't. Paper towels and the old fashioned blowers are more sanitary. At least the you can use your elbow to push the button on a conventional blower, and come to think of it, whatever happened to the really old fashioned hands-free blowers which had a light beam, they were around 40 years ago and there hasn't been an improvement.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-33487359854230146552012-06-10T11:59:13.463-07:002012-06-10T11:59:13.463-07:00"CJ said...
This was at the time then-Opposi..."CJ said...<br /><br />This was at the time then-Opposition Leader Tony Blair was saying that if elected a Labour government would be "tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime."<br /><br />Or, as some people characterized Labour's actual policies once they were in office: "Tough on crime and tough on the victims of crime".Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-21281378443709198482012-06-10T11:02:09.203-07:002012-06-10T11:02:09.203-07:00jody: "i deliberately type everything in lowe...jody: <i>"i deliberately type everything in lower case, without capitalizing. this is faster to write and faster to read."</i><br /><br />Unlikely, at least for the latter. The point of conventions is that they're conventional. That is, the brain (well, my brain, anyway) deals automatically with the symbols and I pay conscious attention to the content only. Get cute with the unconventional typography, and I'm consciously distracted from the content. AKA "annoyed". Put another way, I only read this comment of yours because it was quoted by conventional typists. So yeah, I guess I did save time there, by not having read your full comment at all.Rohan Sweenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-91865351511633878802012-06-10T10:57:19.814-07:002012-06-10T10:57:19.814-07:00OTOH, Dyson hand driers, when working, are the onl...<i>OTOH, Dyson hand driers, when working, are the only hot-air dryers I have ever encountered that actually _dry my hands_.</i><br /><br />That is a lot like my old MG, it was the most wonderfully fun car to drive when it was actually up and running.Ex Submarine Officernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-19088176378262488132012-06-10T08:23:23.620-07:002012-06-10T08:23:23.620-07:00"American authors have tended to be a lot mor...<i>"American authors have tended to be a lot more staid, a lot more stiff, a lot more boring. I mean, just compare Henry James vs. Dickens. Not that I particularly enjoy Dickens, mind, but he's at least more entertaining than Henry James."</i><br /><br />I couldn't disagree more.<br /><br />I always laugh when I recall James's description of a voluptuous woman in a very a décolleté dress as " it might have taken the last November gale to account for the completeness with which, in some quarters, she had shed her leaves." He goes on to have his caddish character remark on her dress, "My dear child, YOU seem to have lost something,<br />though I'll say for you that one doesn't miss it."<br /><br />His work is full of similar humor, subtle and circuitous maybe but very pointed.<br /><br />And while Dickens is justly famous for the colorful names he gives his characters, so far as I know, none even comes close to James's "Fanny Assingham" from <i>The Golden Bowl</i>.Kylienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-8049928134805930152012-06-10T08:08:58.411-07:002012-06-10T08:08:58.411-07:00"Steve doesn't mention Melville, who was ...<i>"Steve doesn't mention Melville, who was an absolutely extraordinary writer."</i><br /><br />That was the omission I noticed, too.<br /><br /><i>"An eccentric and difficult one, knotty but profound, very dense long poetic sentences -- reminiscent of Shakespeare at times."</i><br /><br />Mercy, yes. <br /><br /><i>"I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass.<br /><br />Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun - slow dived from noon, - goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; I, the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron - that I know - not gold. 'Tis split, too - that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain- battering fight!<br /><br />Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good night - good night!"</i><br /><br />Maybe not Shakespearean in tone but towering nonetheless. I'll never forget reading <i>Moby Dick</i> as a junior in high school. I truly felt I was on a voyage of discovery. I can recall that feeling in all its wonder and freshness whenever I think of the novel.Kylienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-23276786602884133992012-06-09T22:23:19.114-07:002012-06-09T22:23:19.114-07:00Simon: They do (mostly) dry your hands, though not...Simon: They do (mostly) dry your hands, though not without buffeting both your hands where thousands of other hands have been buffeted before.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-15252586821450835652012-06-09T20:27:52.282-07:002012-06-09T20:27:52.282-07:00Americans are much more succinct in their writing....Americans are much more succinct in their writing. I suspect our language differences reflect the difference in the history of the two countries over the last couple of hundred years. Americans were men and women of action, forever pushing west, DOING rather than practicing talking and writing. The British stopped DOING a long time ago. Then, the public schools which developed to serve this spirited, man of action called an American, emphasized substance over style, clarity and conciseness over loquaciousness. We had few schools that mimicked the academies serving the British elite.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-17784344432704809132012-06-09T19:50:06.098-07:002012-06-09T19:50:06.098-07:00I think there's probably two parts to it. One...I think there's probably two parts to it. One is that elite British culture has been more verbal than elite American culture, at least since the late 19th century -- debate at university, debate in Parliament, etc. The other is that there were generations of British children who were made to memorize a <i>lot</i> of excellent poetry and prose when they were in school. If we want our children to be good at playing with language, I don't think there's anything better than rote memorization of reams of great poetry and prose. But it really does have to be great poetry and prose -- the kind that will teach a sense both of what phrases will stick in the mind and the rhythms of the English language. I.e. most modern poetry, which tends to fall short on both these points, would not work.<br /><br />Re: Anonymous:<br /><br /><i>Brits wrote as if sitting upright to keep good posture OR as if relaxing in lounge in some colonial outpost drinking martini. <br /><br />Americans write as if conversing in a tavern or among close friends</i>.<br /><br />Except these are totally untrue. British authors write in a whole range of styles, but novelistically, they've had casual, chatty, intimate narrators a lot longer than we have -- think about Saki or Wodehouse or Jerome K. Jerome. Or, indeed, the Brontes ("Reader, I married him.") American authors have tended to be a lot more staid, a lot more stiff, a lot more <i>boring</i>. I mean, just compare Henry James vs. Dickens. Not that I particularly enjoy Dickens, mind, but he's at least more entertaining than Henry James.<br /><br />Twain and Poe are remarkable among American authors of the 19th century precisely because they managed to <i>avoid</i> the defects which characterised so much American fiction until the mid-20th century: a self-serious tone and the mistaken belief that a complicated sentence structure was the mark of a sophisticated writer. And it's not just the 19th century Americans, mind -- Tarkington and Dreiser are just as bad.<br /><br />Re: Jeff Burton:<br /><br /><i>BTW, this is another great opportunity for all the four sigma isteve readers to post their SAT scores. Can't wait to read all of them</i>.<br /><br />1600. That was at the age of 15, mind. I don't think I'm 4 sigma, though. 2 sigma <i>maybe</i>. (haha)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-6254760282331199302012-06-09T17:53:48.021-07:002012-06-09T17:53:48.021-07:00Well, Steve, I think this is a nice little essay y...Well, Steve, I think this is a nice little essay you've written. For an American, of course.JInoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-13663553836964123792012-06-09T17:40:51.107-07:002012-06-09T17:40:51.107-07:00Anon:
"About a year ago, I noticed that the l...Anon:<br />"About a year ago, I noticed that the local airport had changed all their hand driers to the Dyson ones. 6 months later, they are all marked "out of service"."<br /><br />OTOH, Dyson hand driers, when working, are the only hot-air dryers I have ever encountered that actually _dry my hands_.Simon in Londonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-56666126408917623492012-06-09T17:37:39.251-07:002012-06-09T17:37:39.251-07:00Perspective:
"The expression, 'you what&#...Perspective:<br />"The expression, 'you what', sound like, at least to my Canadian ear, as you whaa. 'Isn't' is often pronounced as 'innit'. Is it a regional dialect (ie Manchester)? Or is this common pronounciation across England?"<br /><br />Those can be found in various lower-class accents across England. 'Innit' would be Estuary English (popularised Cockney), I think.Simon in Londonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-5243829198345191552012-06-09T17:35:06.625-07:002012-06-09T17:35:06.625-07:00Matt:
"I think also the corruption of the res...Matt:<br />"I think also the corruption of the respectable parts of the academy may be more of a phenomenon in the US than in the UK (where the contagion is more quarantined to less respectable parts and the "studies" subjects)."<br /><br />My impression is that individual British academics are at least as left-wing on average as their American equivalents. BUT British academics seem almost embarrassed to force cultural Marxism on their students, where the Americans do so proudly and with great vigour. The idea of forcing every new student enrolling to read some deconstructionist novel just would not be possible here, I think.<br /><br />I remember once seeing a very senior academic putting up flyers for "Black History Month", not a big thing here. She seemed noticeably uncomfortable, almost embarrassed.<br /><br />BTW my students seem very conservative, and I often find myself on the 'left' of arguments with them. They almost all seem to despise Political Correctness,for instance.Simon in Londonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-72298102056587036952012-06-09T15:46:28.138-07:002012-06-09T15:46:28.138-07:00Sailer: "The British have won a huge number o...Sailer: "The British have won a huge number of hard science Nobel prizes, and their engineering creativity seems pretty good, as well. My impression is that their weaknesses have been in things like getting their mass produced manufactured goods to be durable, the crucial but kind of obscure challenges that the Germans and Japanese worked out well, but, say, the Italians didn't."<br /><br />A great example of this is Dyson vs Miele. German Miele's focus and engineers are engineers after my own heart - they think of everything in order to design the best possible product. They take into account why you would be buying it and what you really want it to be like (i.e. reliable) after owning it for 10 years. And they manufacture it to do just that. Over the 10-30 year lifespan of the product, it will end up being both better and cheaper than buying the lower priced alternative.<br /><br />On the other hand, British Dyson is the PT Barnum of household appliance manufacturers. Their ads scream hucksterism: "5 times as fast as a formula 1 engine!" when referring to a vacuum cleaner motor/hand drier motor, as if that has any relevance outside of F1. About a year ago, I noticed that the local airport had changed all their hand driers to the Dyson ones. 6 months later, they are all marked "out of service". But hey, they sure had funky color schemes!<br /><br />This is yet another example of the success of the high verbal/low math huckster. The reality is that the market is composed largely of people without either the math or the verbal IQ to tell the difference between quality and crap, or a sound argument and a fraudulent one. But what they can tell: price, and whether the salesman (of the good, service or argument) is nice and tells them what they want to hear.<br /><br />To a large extent, the online review sites had launched a major offensive for truth and honesty - good engineering was being rewarded with great ratings. With the advent of astroturfing, the hucksters have mounted a counteroffensive. Now you have to virtually read every review to be guaranteed that what you are getting is quality.<br /><br />However, the strategy of providing what the consumer actually needs as opposed to what will get him to shell out cash for once only - it's still effective because consumers buy multiple things over their lifetimes. Car owners know that if you want reliability at a fair price: buy Japanese. And because this is what car owners actually need, once they go Japanese they keep buying Japanese. This has been the case since the 1980s at least.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-76417081545333137342012-06-09T13:48:39.376-07:002012-06-09T13:48:39.376-07:00Simon in London said:
"English person", ...Simon in London said:<br />"English person", please. My Ulster accent has plenty of rrr's! :)<br /><br />Mind you the Cornish 'pirate' accent is also known for its ARRR!!"<br /><br />I've noticed from watching episodes of the British soap Coronation Street, that many don't pronounce their 'Ts'at the end of certain words/phrases. The expression, 'you what', sound like, at least to my Canadian ear, as you whaa. 'Isn't' is often pronounced as 'innit'. Is it a regional dialect (ie Manchester)? Or is this common pronounciation across England?Perspectivenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-77917987419364503592012-06-09T13:41:36.694-07:002012-06-09T13:41:36.694-07:00And another gay: Henry James.And another gay: Henry James.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12220243015538234292012-06-09T13:37:57.417-07:002012-06-09T13:37:57.417-07:00"Steve doesn't mention Melville"
An..."Steve doesn't mention Melville"<br /><br />And another gay, Walt Whitman. And Dickinson.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-63006560444668671272012-06-09T12:18:11.592-07:002012-06-09T12:18:11.592-07:00But an English gentleman would have felt stupid as...<i>But an English gentleman would have felt stupid as a farmer in the Midwest or Wild West.</i><br /><br />Or, as a I once heard a brotha state it, "where I come from we only talk for a little while - then we start to hit."walter condleynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-25600458848881621582012-06-09T12:03:42.523-07:002012-06-09T12:03:42.523-07:00Steve doesn't mention Melville, who was an abs...Steve doesn't mention Melville, who was an absolutely extraordinary writer. An eccentric and difficult one, knotty but profound, very dense long poetic sentences -- reminiscent of Shakespeare at times.<br /><br /><i> is it possible there is some widely dispersed genetic variation that results in abnormal energy among Anglo-Saxons? A lot of ridiculously energetic people required to build that empire. </i><br /><br />People at this site massively overemphasize genetic vs. cultural differences. One of the clearest demonstrations of the importance of culture are the 'golden age' surges of energy and creativity that run through peoples who at other times in their history seem dormant -- the Greeks in the 7th through 5th centuries BC, the Arabs soon after Mohammad, the Spanish and Portuguese during the 15th to 17th century, etc. These surges seem to last about two or three centuries and then tail off into a gradual loss of energy, power, and influence. The British golden age seems to have run from sometime in the mid-17th to sometime in the mid-20th century (although I guess Shakespeare was before that).MQnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-59019574058055626702012-06-09T11:26:06.325-07:002012-06-09T11:26:06.325-07:00Many critics of the Great Gatsby have missed the p...Many critics of the Great Gatsby have missed the point of Great Gatsby. <br /><br />"The Great Gatsby is, in part, an indictment of the American Dream but it is an indictment that is framed in religious terms. It is no coincidence that it was “on Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages alongshore, [that] the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby’s house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn.” Gatsby’s parties provide at least some of his guests with a pseudo-religion and Gatsby himself cannot entirely escape the pseudo-religious net. On reinventing himself as a seventeen year old, we are told, he went about “His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty.”<br /><br />However, this sentence does not tell the whole story: Gatsby was able to transform his lost Catholicism into something nobler than mere materialism. When he first kissed Daisy, he feared that “his mind would never romp again like the mind of God” but, in fact, “she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.” For Gatsby faith in God is replaced by an ultimately unsustainable faith in human love."<br /><br />http://www.catholicfiction.net/2010/10/08/the-great-gatsby-by-f-scott-fitzgerald/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-90995380424163488972012-06-09T11:17:42.411-07:002012-06-09T11:17:42.411-07:00"VS Naipaul is better than any contemporary B..."VS Naipaul is better than any contemporary British novelist.<br /><br />Maybe, but as a reporter he blows. "A Turn in The South" manages to convey not a single truth or interesting observation about American race relations."<br /><br />A Turn in the South is one of Naipaul's lesser works. Naipaul's books on the US and britain are inferior to his fiction and nonfiction on Indian and Carribean subjects..Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-64073658467040977052012-06-09T11:12:19.420-07:002012-06-09T11:12:19.420-07:00New York Jewish journalists are very good at const...<i>New York Jewish journalists are very good at constructing pieces that are emotionally effective, eg they are effective at emotionally convincing the typical reader that Steve's truth-telling makes him a bad, hurtful person who should be banished from polite society.</i> <br /><br /><br /><br />It's a lot easier to "convince" people of that when the people who decide who should be banished from polite society are these same New York Jews. That is, they only need to convince themselves. Hardly a task requiring a marvelous wordsmith.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-3368004720627250132012-06-09T11:04:43.188-07:002012-06-09T11:04:43.188-07:00So Sunbeam, you're saying God is an American?So Sunbeam, you're saying <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEypM_BRe5Y&t=3m35s" rel="nofollow">God is an American</a>?Individuation in fairytalesnoreply@blogger.com