Ventilated Prose (2009)

vanemden.wordpress.com

23 points·sequoia··6 comments

This reminds me of Sun Tzu's Art of War. His writing certainly is a kind of poetry, but the lines and stanzas are broken down not only by semantics, as done by Buckminster Fuller, but also by concept.

Ventilated prose isn't only useful for reading; it is also useful for memorising.

As an addendum, I wonder how much of this is down to poor typography obscuring the rhythm of the text in the first place. Perhaps this is a good substitution for anything that doesn't reach the level of a book or big report. Good for anything that doesn't quite deserve typographic treatment by a pro.

Example of memorising: trying to keep the definitions of open and closed formulae straight. Shoenfield writes "A formula A is closed if no variable is free in A." which I memorised laid out as

A formula A

is closed if

no variable is

free in A

I quite like the idea and find myself doing something similar, especially when writing for clarity is key. I think any easy way of automating this would be to line break at every subordinate clause and break at commas whenever the syllable count dictates a breath.

This could also be a trick for speed reading, as the structure of the text would be more obvious and visible on the page.

Isn’t this the point of punctuation?

Yes, but, formatting is also useful. Most of us have come across a giant block of text, where the writer failed to break it into proper paragraphs. Most people who commit this sin are also poor writers, and that doesn't help, but the aesthetics of words on the page absolutely affect the way the reader experiences the information.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com