Hacker News Reader

Comment by orthogonal_cube | Hacker News Reader

> Good writing doesn't have mad tangents anyway, there should be a flow and natural transition.

In general, yes. Technical documents, research reports, news articles, and other formal publications should follow this.

Anything else which allows a bit more freedom in expression? I’d say it’s a matter of taste.

View on HN

I had freewritten, generally free expression type documents in mind when I wrote my statement, e.g. blog articles or opinion pieces. The problem is 'a matter of taste' can be used to excuse/justify anything.

That's more of a feature than it is a problem.

Agree to disagree. It allows badly written stuff to be defended, I would argue more often than alternative more acceptable case scenarios.

Outside of settings requiring formalized style, people are free to write and to speak however they wish.

Others are free to dislike this.

> people are free to write and to speak however they wish.

Yes, that doesn't mean standards don't exist, nor that good and bad writing styles don't exist.

Don't be one of those 'everything is subjective' doofuses, please.

The very best part about English writing standards is that there are so many to pick from!

At the end of the day, it really is subjective: A reader either likes a style and/or finds that it is conducent to conveying meaning, or they do not.

(Speaking of unlikable styles, I'm just going to take the liberty to interpret the name-calling as your resignation on this matter. Have a nice day, comrade.)

> The very best part about English writing standards is that there are so many to pick from!

This monumentally misses the point.

> it really is subjective

And this is just the disappointing and flatly incorrect view I hoped not to see. Sigh. Have a great day/night buddy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com