Ep 21. Refactored Writing

links:

• INE ventures
• James’ Toy Swift app (Grocery List)
• BuzzFeed reported on a tobacco ad which reportedly invented the word “like” (#14)
• Hemingway App
• “Hemingway” on Hemingway
• Free Jazz
• Article about books most frequently abandoned and article about most unread books and the Hawking Index
• On Writing Well
• George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”

Writing sample (From Das Kapital)

I originally planned to just cross out words. But since that required changing tenses and conjugations, I’ll just provide the original and the revised version.

The desire after hoarding is in its very nature unsatiable. In its qualitative aspect, or formally considered, money has no bounds to its efficacy, i.e., it is the universal representative of material wealth, because it is directly convertible into any other commodity. But, at the same time, every actual sum of money is limited in amount, and, therefore, as a means of purchasing, has only a limited efficacy. This antagonism between the quantitative limits of money and its qualitative boundlessness, continually acts as a spur to the hoarder in his Sisyphus-like labour of accumulating. It is with him as it is with a conqueror who sees in every new country annexed, only a new boundary.

James’ revisions:

The desire to hoard is fundamentally unsatiable. Qualitatively, money has unlimited efficacy – it’s the universal representation of material wealth – because it’s convertible into any commodity. But, every actual sum of money is a fixed amount, so it has a limited efficacy as a means of purchasing. This antagonism between the limits and boundlessness of money continually acts as a spur to the hoarder in his Sisyphus-like labour of accumulating. He’s like a conqueror who, with each new country they annex, just sees a new boundary.

(music: “So Fine” by Shenandoah and the Night)