Paradigms Lost

What Hacker News says

1. keiferskiMay 2024
   It’s mostly because of laziness and a hostility toward the idea of “correctness” in language use, and it goes back many, many decades. See John Simon’s book Paradigms Lost (from 1981!) for a brutally amusing take on these common errors.

   When it becomes socially unacceptable to insist on standards and correctness, people either don’t learn how to write properly - or they are cowed into silence when making corrections.

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2. keiferskiApr 2024
   Just a few examples:

   - Paradigms Lost by John Simon. A lot of these older cultural/writing commentary books don't seem to be digitized, but are absolutely worth reading

   - Some older tourism books. For example, I have a little pamphlet book on visiting Yugoslavia, written in Polish.

   - Unique/interesting formats. For example, I have a book of "useful words for dealing with capitalists and their markets" that was written in German during the DDR. It has about 2,000 words written side-by-side in 8 languages, including English, German, French, Czech, and some others.

   - Older magazines, especially fashion magazines. Very hard to get a hold of or find online.

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3. keiferskiApr 2021
   Paradigms Lost by John Simon. He is often too pedantic, but I find his extreme focus on writing and speaking English properly to be refreshing in a world of laxity. Reading his book definitely improved my writing skills.
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4. a_pMar 2013
   I thought that the quality of writing in the article was very poor. As a side note, I also found it funny that many are worried that the "prestige" of Harvard is besmirched, because the original meaning (now obsolete) of prestige was

     An illusion; a conjuring trick; a deception, an imposture.
   

   EDIT: Even the title of the article is unintentionally funny. Because academics may also be the plural of academic (better described as an academician), the title may be taken literally.

   >As professors focus on their research, and students worry about securing career opportunities, both sides become increasingly disinterested in the classroom.

   This sentence is atrocious, not only because of the use of "disinterested" for "uninterested" (Bryan Garner classifies this usage as Stage 4 on the language change index, meaning that it is ubiquitous but still not quite accepted [1]), but because the meaning is ambiguous. Are the views of the students about the idea of classroom learning changing, or do the students feel apathetic inside the classrooms of professors who ignore cheating?

   Another poorly written sentence:

   >The roughly 30-member committee was established in the fall of 2010 and includes about eight student members.

   This sentence would be fine in informal speech. In formal writing, especially in a respected newspaper such as the Crimson, it is unacceptable.

   Somewhere, John Simon is muttering under his breath.[2]

   [1] http://www.amazon.com/Garners-Modern-American-Usage-Garner/d... [2] http://www.amazon.com/Paradigms-Lost-Reflections-John-Simon/...

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