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Comment by Kluny | Hacker News Reader

No, you're not alone. The New Yorker is famous for using big words to try to sound smart.

These two sentences, for example:

> Fairly considered, the Texas legislature is more functional than the United States Congress, and more genteel than the House of Commons. But a recurrent crop of crackpots and ideologues has fed the state’s reputation for aggressive know-nothingism and proudly retrograde politics.

As far as I can tell, even though they are in the same paragraph and nominally about the same topic, and joined together with that "But", they have nothing to do with each other. To me it looks incoherent.

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This is a pretty uncharitable comment. A nicer (and, in my opinion, more correct) take would be that their articles are written for people that enjoy reading and language.

And the sentences you cite make perfect sense to me: the legislature may be relatively functional and courteous, but it still has many irrational members who are ignorant and backwards.

Honestly, to me it makes complete sense in context. I'm sorry you were confused.

It is funny that in your example of "using big words to try to sound smart," the biggest word used is "know-nothingism."

But seriously, is it bad that a non-native speaker who is comfortable reading CNN has trouble with the New Yorker? I'd never heard the too-many-big-words criticism of the New Yorker before, but CNN is certainly the direct opposite.

And 'know-nothingism' has a specific historical meaning, one that makes perfect sense in this context.

>is it bad that a non-native speaker who is comfortable reading CNN has trouble with the New Yorker

Not especially - they have different audiences: CNN targets a wide demographic and the NYer targets older, affluent liberals, who tend to have advanced levels of education. And I'd argue that even their readership might find some of the stylistic choices made in the NYer annoying - eg: spelling out numerical amounts rather than using Arabic numbers.

I don't see how those don't fit together perfectly well. The first sentence describes the smooth operations of the Texas legislature, and the second sentence describes the group that threatens this efficiency, and embarrass an otherwise-well-run state.

You may disagree with the thesis and the choice of flowery language, but I dont' see anything incoherent about it.

The sentences fit together just fine, but you need to read the whole paragraph.

Frederick Law Olmsted wrote in 1853 that he thought that the Texas Legislature was more respectable (for its “manly dignity and trustworthiness”) than Parliament or Congress. Lawrence Wright is agreeing that if we examine the three bodies impartially, the Texas legislature is more “functional” than the US Congress and more “genteel” than the House of Commons, but that still Olmsted’s characterization is unusual because the Texas legislature has historically been known for its crackpots and ideologues and proud anti-intellectualism.

The “but” is contrasting Wright’s caveat (that if we consider it “fairly” the Texas legislature isn’t as dysfunctional as Congress) with his main point about the Texas legislature’s long-standing negative reputation.

I'm also not clear on whether "functional" and "genteel" in this context are literally talking about the facade on the buildings, or their collective temperament?

No he’s saying that the US Congress is literally less functional: has more internal strife, gets gridlocked, fails to pass essential legislation, gets sucked up in scandals, etc.

And the House of Commons is less genteel: people shout at each other, interrupt each-other, call each-other names, etc., rather than acting like polite and formal “gentlemen”.

It's talking about the people in the legislature and how it, as an organization, functions.

"Genteel" is always used to describe people (similar to polite or well-mannered).

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