[Ipg-smz] From a non-member

[Stephen Satchell]

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Pass along to the IPG?
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 02:39:47 -0700
From: HB Clifford <hbjclifford at gmail.com>
To: Stephen Satchell <satch at satchell.net>

Excerpt from an article on another subject by the always estimable
Anthony Daniels, writing as Theodore Dalrymple:

"There is too little thought, and there are too many words both spoken
and written, in the world. The writer, especially when he is paid
piecework, is tempted by wordiness, verbosity, pleonasm, supererogation.
Dostoyevsky’s books are so long not because he had so much to say but
because he was paid by the page.

"When I am paid by the word -- $1 a word, shall we say by way of
illustration, though alas it is usually far less -- I always delight to
use such locutions as in so far as or in as much as, of course eschewing
the perfectly correct insofar as or inasmuch as for obvious reasons:
They are worth $2 less to me. Indeed, whenever I have typed in so far
as, I pause with delight at having earned $4 in the fraction of a moment
that it has taken me to type it. If only I were paid at the hourly rate,
I would by now be a very rich man."

Thoughtlets?

PS -- Re previous rock, there's allegedly another question:  "*Star
Trek* or *Star Wars*"? Of course, it's a trick.  The right answer is
"Neither.  *Firefly*."

-- 
===========
H.B.J. Clifford
principal, Tahoe Translation Group, Inc.
Reno-Tahoe, Nevada U.S.A.
U.S. PST:  GMT/UTC -8 hours