lolz

This piece of writing is like a good poem. This piece of writing is like poetry. This piece of writing is poetry. This is poetry. Poetic.

Jason must wish English was like other languages whose verbs have implied pronouns.

Right, this is one time spanish is more concise: aprendimos

Is this one of those “figure out the next word in the sequence” games?

I propose: Eureka!

Lard Factor: 77%.

I still remember a piece in Wired years ago about stories with only 6 words, inspired by one Hemingway did.

My favorite:

We went solar; sun went nova.

Check it out if you haven’t seen it:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html

Informative.

Thanks.

I guess the class you’d like to teach is in session. Nice!

How is “We [also] learned” seen as more condensed (and, in this context implicitly better) than “We [also] learned that”?

The way I see it, “that” is one of many words that can follow “learned”: How, where, what, why, etc. Like:

We also learned that milk is best served cold. We also learned where milk comes from.

Why is “that” singled out?

I’m not a native speaker; the question not rhetorical.

@Berserk, “that” is singled out because it is not really necessary (at least not always). For example, “We also learned that milk is best served cold” could be more concisely stated as “We learned milk is best served cold”. I think it becomes a matter of opinion as to which is more desirable.

So why don’t you twats tell us all what you learned instead of getting all Poetry 101 on us?

@tutuca: Except “aprendimos” is the same number of characters as “we learned” ;-) But “we learnt” is shorter still, depending on your brand of English.

@Berserk: As used in Jason’s post, “that” is an empty complementizer. More about them, including examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementizer#Empty_complementizers

Reminds me of the movie “A River Runs Through It,” where the boy brings his English paper to his Dad. Dad reads it, then tears in half and says “Good. Now make it half as long.”

I like how much thought you guys put into every single word that goes on to your site!

I like how much thought you guys put into every single word!

I like!

I’m learnding!

The last sentence provides the same information as the first. A post on efficiency and simplicity that, in itself, is efficient and simplistic. I love it.

I generally agree with the idea here, but I don’t think “we also learned…” and “we learned…” are the same. If you learned more than one thing and each one gets its own discussion then “also” is necessary at some point. “We learned (thing one). We also learned (thing two).” Right?

Another thing we learned was that X Another thing we learned was X We also learned that X We also learned X We learned X X

Lesson:...

Thanks for post; now see light. My writing better!

Poetry? Come on fanboys, get some perspective!

Minimalistic, I like.

Easy NOT.

On a serious note, I believe the issue isn’t always about reducing the number of words. Rather, it ought to be using the RIGHT amount of words.

Omit needless words.

@Landon & Scott: Thanks! I’ll read that Wikipedia article.

Twitter has helped me a lot with this skill. I’ll often write full replies and then edit them down to

The final result is always much better than the first.

The only circumstance I can think of where “We also learned that” would be better than “We also learned” or “We learned” is if you were trying to get the whole line to be in iambic pentameter: “We also learned that da, da da, da dah.”

I like your style Jason. Have you read William Zinsser by any chance?

Correction.

Read William Zinsser by chance?

I recently finished reading the wonderful Maira Kalman-illustrated edition of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style. What you did here is very much in line with their advice. It’s a great read and I’m sure you guys would love it.

Elements of Style and Zinsser’s On Writing Well are great resources for learning how to pare your texts.

I need to point out that removing “also” in the last iteration intrinsically changes the meaning of the phrase, when it’s in context. Perhaps the previous sentence was “The data informed us the site had many visits.” Putting “We also learned…” after that connects this sentence with “the data” of the previous sentence. Using “We learned…” could mean that this is hooked to “the data” or it could build off the “many visits” or even something stated later in the sentence.

In other words, I feel “We also learned…” is the smallest atom you can distill from the initial phrase without losing meaning.

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It’s like a very splendid poeo indeed.

Can I just say that this is something that basically I really love a lot.

Love it.

I don’t get it.