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Comment by AlbertCory | Hacker News Reader

> This is reductive

And this is a meaningless insult. One might say it needs translation into Normal People English.

> The point here being that one could write a million bowdlerised versions of Emma

Who cares? The point is, the plots and characters are readily adaptable into modern settings, and that IS a valid modernization of Shakespeare, as McWhorter wants. There are a million ways to do that, and godspeed to all of them.

Having dukes and queens and earls speaking modern English is just stupid.

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"reductive" isn't an insult. And note the "just" in the parent post. It is an adaptation, but it is more than just that.

it's a pretentious, overblown word that apparently had a burst of interest around 2012 and is completely unnecessary (but sounds scientific).

What does it give you that "oversimplified" or "simplistic" does not?

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=r...

https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/reductive

https://mathoverflow.net/questions/321096/what-is-the-defini...

I'm not sure precisely what you mean by pretension - since affecting importance makes little sense in the context. I presume you're misusing the word to refer to 'tall poppy syndrome' or similarly to the Irish colloquialism 'notions'. The word reductive is perfectly common in English writing - according to the OED it dates to the 1500s. Perhaps it's new and frightening to you because you're level of literacy is not what it might be?

https://edtrust.org/the-equity-line/the-literacy-crisis-in-t...

Perhaps we'd do better to cull the amount of words used? To reduce to available pool to the most efficient use of letters? Personally I think that would be double plus ungood, but perhaps I need to brush up on my 'normal people English'.

Look, sarcastic nose tweaking aside, a new word is a gift! When I come across one I add it to a list and count myself richer for having found a more nuanced understanding of how others view the world.

hey, way to be exemplify that condescension:

> Perhaps it's new and frightening to you because you're level of literacy is not what it might be?

and you can't spell "your." My level of literacy is most likely much higher than yours.

Using pretentious words in order to sound more educated than you are is the very thing I'm talking about.

> To reduce to available pool to the most efficient use of letters?

(Pun intended there, I guess?) "Reducing" things to their essence is what we do in science and mathematics. It's a good thing.

reductive is a form of simplification, but a specific form, one in which what is discussed has been reduced to fewer (probably just one) aspect, simplification is not necessary reductive as you can have multiple aspects maintained but each of those aspects made less complex.

This, at any rate, is my usage.

“Simplistic” isn’t too bad but “oversimplified” is a terrible word.

I won't attribute this to Einstein:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/05/13/einstein-simple/

That word you dislike means you've violated "But Not Simpler"

Fewer letters.

you're right: saves one character over "simplistic"

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