Rory Marinich: Make Great Shit
journal.rinich.com
journal.rinich.com
This isn't about writing good code, or good music, or making good music. It's about making anything. The technique is the same regardless of whether you're making a lesson plan or a DIY desk.
I mean, it's not like I didn't know I was writing the word "shit". Usually I don't write any swears into my posts. This one, that one word was the point.
The reason for that is simple, this is not my first language and I find that if I'm not very careful I get caught up in my somewhat limited vocabulary. In dutch that problem would normally not hit me.
If you write a piece like this and you have a point to make then it is a real pity that your choice of words gets in the way of getting the point across.
There was this article a little while ago about 'shit my dad says', and you commented there that you thought it was excellent stuff. But it is the diametrical opposite of the way you write, he makes his point in one sentence, which may be coarse and rough around the edges, he may even use a swear word (or two), but it does not get in the way of the delivery.
I swear I tried to read your piece, but after reading roughly a screenfull I simply gave up.
That can't have been your intention (or maybe it was).
The criticism here is too harsh I think, you probably have a valid point to make but if it got lost than that's a waste.
Oh, well. It's one piece. I can handle people not liking it.
(As an aside: I never suspected English wasn't your first language! That comes as a bit of a shock.)
> (As an aside: I never suspected English wasn't your first language! That comes as a bit of a shock.)
Why would that shock you ? It's true and there isn't a day that I don't learn something new about English. I also am quite dependent on my spell checker to keep me on the straight and narrow. And I can't seem to decide on English or American spelling, that's quite messy.
Mainly because I've been having conversations with you for a year, and you always state yourself so eloquently.
Thanks for the compliment though :), but if you look a little harder I'm sure you'll find plenty of mistakes.
There is no generic word, offensive or not, worth repeating one hundred times in a short essay.
Obviously we're going to disagree over whether it was overdone. That's subjective. I've seen a lot of positive response to this and surprisingly little negative. I'm fine with the response I'm getting overall.
As for offensive: It's the word "shit". I'm not using it in an offensive way. I didn't write "How to shit great". I used it as a generic placeholder. Is it offensive just because it's a swear word? Because here I thought we were more mature than to get prissy over naughty language, particularly when it's not attempting to evoke naughty imagery.
Example:
"That doesn’t mean the [stuff] you don’t get isn’t great, and it doesn’t make you less of a [stuff]maker not to get it. Just know that if you don’t get [stuff], you’ve still got something to learn, and that oftentimes it’s worth taking time to find somebody enthusiastic enough about [stuff] to explain what about it he’s into. (This is called teaching. As a kid you were taught that teaching had to do with seating assignments, but that was wrong. Teaching is knowing enough about [stuff] both to like it and to make other people like it.)"
If you use "is", "good", "stuff", or "things" more often than once per paragraph, you are not communicating clearly. That is true whether you use the word intentionally or not. Since you used it so often intentionally it means you forced the word into places where there are better words that could have been used, detracting even further.
Swearing doesn't instantly lead to good writing, it almost always leads to bad writing.
And to say that since you are making a general point you must use general words a fallacy. You can be quite specific in word choice while still making a general point.
> If you use "is", "good", "stuff", or "things" more often than once per paragraph, you are not communicating clearly.
Right, if that's happening unintentionally. I'm baffled by the assumption that I just accidentally wrote the word shit a hundred times. It's not like I think swearing leads instantly to good writing.
In this case, though, the central point of the post is that we're not talking about a guide to doing X/Y/Z. This is something that's applicable for virtually everything. The repetition is intended to drive that point.
"Remind yourself always that your shit is relative. Find ways to expand your definition of shit as much as possible. That way, the first step you take in making your shit will alone surpass the completed shit of the inexperienced."
You can't make that point without using the word "shit" three times? I'm sure it can be better in a dozen ways without ever using the word shit, but you overused "shit" again to keep your theme going.
That is why the original poster is not being snarky. The post literally reads as shit shit shit shit shit, how many times can I say shit in one blog post. The point you are trying to make is completely lost in that.
edit: When you start blaming the reader for comprehension problems, you have failed as communicating. Although I'll keep in mind that you just wrote "it it" and "people're" right after talking about "flows naturally".
Perhaps it's that I don't skim when I read: I actually digest the words being used. Read aloud, it really doesn't sound like the word is used too much; skimmed, it's all that stands out.
The greatest satisfaction to a hacker is to produce output that gives the hacker pleasure to look at, think about, and use.
Achieving this satisfaction is an iterative hill climbing optimization. Each iteration depends on making something. By making lots of shit (there's that word), you get to see what output gives you satisfaction; and you feel some satisfaction, which gives you the energy to make more. Notice what you made that gives you pleasure, and how you made it. Repeat until you are a satisfied Hacker.
(I agree that the word got so overused I couldn't parse the writing very well -- like if you say the word 'apple' 100 times, you start to forget what it means -- or like the way if you eliminate microsaccades, foveated objects start to disappear [1].)
Fair point about Banksy, though.
That comment here was the first time in a week and a half I've seen anybody comment on the word "shit", actually. When I wrote it I expected that might be a turn-off; I guess after it caught on in the blogosphere I got used to people treating it like it wasn't overdosing on the word.