Writing

AI Panic and NaNoWriMo

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This has been the year of panic over artificial intelligence. It will take over our jobs! It will replace journalism, fiction writing, and maybe even songwriting! This panic has shown up in reactions to a measured statement by the board of National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo. Three members of the board have resigned over the statement.

It begins: “NaNoWriMo does not explicitly support any specific approach to writing, nor does it explicitly condemn any approach, including the use of AI.” That’s not a very tactful way to start, I’ll grant; it could easily be read as endorsing the use of a computer to write your work for you. A clarification was added after the first paragraph, saying, “We also want to make clear that AI is a large umbrella technology and that the size and complexity of that category (which includes both non-generative and generative AI, among other uses) contributes to our belief that it is simply too big to categorically endorse or not endorse.”
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There’s nothing wrong with these expressions

This entry was posted in Commentary Writing and tagged usage vocabulary writing on by

I’ve written a lot of posts on the misuse of words and expressions. For balance, I should mention some that pedants object to, but I don’t. (“Pedant” is defined as someone who objects to usages I don’t object to.)

“I could care less.” The pedant says this should be “I couldn’t care less.” Don’t you understand irony? This is always uttered in a sarcastic tone, and it means something like “I could care less — if I really tried hard.” Do you also object to saying “Big deal!” to dismiss something unimportant?
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Britannica blunders 1

This entry was posted in Writing and tagged language Shakespeare usage vocabulary writing on by

The once-respected name of Britannica has really sunk. In an article on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, they misquote and misinterpret the most famous line of the play, while thinking they’re correcting a misconception.

The most famous line of the play, “Wherefore art thou, Romeo?”, is often misinterpreted. The archaic word wherefore does not mean “where”, but “why”, rendering the modern English translation as “Why are you, Romeo?”

That’s not what the line is! It’s “Wherefore art thou Romeo?” with no comma. Juliet isn’t asking why Romeo exists. She’s asking why he’s Romeo — meaning why he is Romeo Montague, a member of an enemy family. The next lines make this clearer: “Deny thy father and refuse thy name, Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”
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“Writer Beware” blog

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This is still, at least officially, a blog by a writer for writers. This week I came across a blog that will interest anyone who writes for money: Writer Beware. It presents worthwhile information on scams that writers may encounter, as well as advice on dealing with publishers, agents, and so on.

I encourage people to use RSS feeds rather than social media sites when possible to follow blogs and news sites, so here’s the RSS link, which should work with any RSS reader (I’ve subscribed to it with Leaf).

Spohr’s first clarinet concerto

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Louis Spohr wrote four clarinet concertos as a result of his professional acquaintance with clarinetist Johann Simon Hermstedt. The first shows that Spohr’s often conservative approach to composition didn’t keep him from writing a concerto with some serious surprises. It’s a difficult work, especially for the clarinet of his time, which had fewer keys than the modern instrument.

The difficulty is partly due to Spohr’s unfamiliarity with what is easy and what is harder on a clarinet. His preface to the printed music reveals that this concerto led directly to improvements in the instrument’s design:
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