this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024
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It's the equivalent of when I got assigned papers with minimum word counts as a kid. Despite the fact that the prompt doesn't warrant 5000 words and it would take massive deviation off of the prompt to get anywhere close to it, people have this weird impression that more words shows more "care" than just communicating clearly. I struggled a lot with a lot of assignments (to the point of not turning some in) because all the filler they'd need to reach the word counts hurt my soul lol.
(I do tend to prefer 500+ page books, but it's because the authors I engage with the most use that space to build out better plots or develop better characters or whatever. It's not padded out.)
Is it?
I once told a teacher I'd write ten times the number of required words as long as I could pick a subject that actually warranted it. And I followed through.
The rare times I got prompts that were actually good, I would run out of paper on which to express everything I wanted expressed. (Yes, I've done writing assignments writing by hand.)
Outside academia no-one is enforcing a word-count. Which means you can just write good prose. Using a lot of words to say very little, is not good prose.
Unless you're dealing with people that don't actually read what you write and instead just look at net weight of the word-salad you threw at them, the content of the text is what matters.
Who takes offence at only a single paragraph, if it addresses their every concern and insecurity, and they are left feeling seen as they reach the final word?
Only people who don't actually read things, or have no reading comprehension, needing the same thing said three time in different ways in one message.
It's the same philosophy, yeah. That more words means more substance and more "respect" or whatever to the message.
It's not rational at all, but people genuinely don't think that way. (Unless it's a forum/social media, then 3 paragraphs is a wall of text that needs to have a 5 word TLDR, because none of it is rational).
The exaggerated version of a simple message once you have a working relationship is silly, but there are way too many times you don't get to a working relationship at all without a wall of bullshit.
Ok, but do the people you're referring to actually appreciate prose, or just skim-read through everything?
Because I'd wager they're the latter, and at that point you don't even need to try to write something good. It's fine to send them three paragraphs where the second and third ones just paraphrase the first.
Paraphrasing the first multiple times is still a big, distracting extra cognitive load, and it needs to hold up if they actually do pay attention to it. One time they notice the obvious bullshit can end a relationship. I won't use an LLM for anything like this because it's stupid, but that's why people are doing it.
You're saying once they see the pointless fluff they themselves ask of people, for what it is, they'll feel insulted?
Paraphrasing yourself comes with built-in deniability. "Oh it's just something I tend to do, I don't mean anything by it, I can make an effort to stop if you like". And then boom, you get to be concise.
There is no way of bloating your prose that doesn't come off as insulting when done with people who don't appreciate volume over quality.
Also, teachers are typically smart enough to probably themselves understand the word-count problem. Which is why I was able to make deals with many of my teachers to change the assignments given such that writing something good was actually possible.
Hence why it's not the same. The people you are talking about aren't worth the effort of dealing with. A writing teacher that gives you high marks for saying nothing with a lot of words, is not a good writing teacher.
I never once had a language teacher that had even the tiniest shred of competence. It's not the norm.
Was for me. I've had teachers assistants that were intelligent and pedagogically literate. Benefits of going to school in the nordics, I guess.
But my point stands. That makes those people unworthy of the effort. You might play to those things to get ahead, but it still doesn't mean it's good communication.
And good communication should be your default behaviour, otherwise you're part of the problem.
I don't play those games.
But most people do, because there's a lot of it required to succeed in a lot of industries. (Even if most recognized that it's nonsense, which they don't), everyone can't just apply for the one percent of bosses who don't do bullshit games.