语言与文风2020russelldavies.typepad.com
为势利读者写作
Writing for Snobs
导读
这篇文章从“为挑剔的读者写作”切入，借用一句观察：模拟或 AI 生成内容的真正破绽是光滑、浅薄、流于表面的质感，而“有趣”恰恰是对这种光滑完美的巧妙偏离。对写作者来说，它提醒我们：与其纠结文字是否出自人手，不如关心它有没有纹理、是否真的有用。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
让文字有“纹理”：太平滑、无瑕、面面俱到的表面往往是敷衍或模拟的标志，好文字需要恰到好处的棱角与毛边。
- 02
把“有趣”理解为对光滑完美的巧妙偏离——不必追求零瑕疵，保留个人节奏和个性反而更有辨识度。
- 03
读者真正在意的是内容是否清晰有用，而非出自谁手；与其担心被 AI 取代，不如把功夫下在真正解决问题上。
- 04
可以想象一位挑剔的读者正在从细微处审视每句话，这种“为 snob 写作”的意识会逼你删掉那些光滑而空洞的句子。
HN 评论精选
模拟或 AI 文字的破绽在于过于光滑平整的表面，“有趣”来自对完美的巧妙偏离。
值得注意的是，“模拟”的典型标志不是那些尖锐的故障点，而是光滑、浅薄、流于表面的质感。这一点在视觉内容上从一开始就成立，比如原版《创》(TRON) 电影——在平滑渐变和完美线条还是奢侈品的年代尤其如此。视觉内容的规律同样适用于文字内容。可以补充一个定义：“有趣”就是对光滑与完美的巧妙偏离。
masswerk查看英文原文
> "the tell-tale signature artifact of simulation is not the spiky glitch, it's the smooth, shallow, facile surface" Notably, this has been true for visual content from the beginning, compare the original "TRON" movie. It had been especially true in times, when smooth gradients and perfect lines had been a luxury, which were hard to achieve in analog media technology, and became the tell-tale signature of computer generated visual content. After an intermezzo in the uncanny valley and with embraceable pixels, we seem to be right back where we started. – It's somewhat logical that what is true for visual content should also be true for textual content. [Edit] We may add a definition: "Interesting" is the artful deviation from the smooth and perfect.
读者只在乎内容好不好，不在意作者是人还是 AI，写作应聚焦于清晰有用。
这些想法都建立在一个假设上：有人会在意东西是 GPT-3 写的还是人写的。但其实没人在意。如果 GPT-3 能把数学条目改写得不那么堆砌无谓术语，我很乐意读它写的维基百科；如果写得更糟，我会更讨厌它，但程度只取决于它比人做得差多少。反正也没人读营销手册。如果 GPT-3 能让律师难受，那挺好。
krick查看英文原文
Any of these thoughts are valid only under the assumption that one is concerned if something is written by GPT-3 or a human. But nobody cares. I would gladly read Wikipedia written by GPT-3, if it can rewrite math articles in a less fucked-up unnecessary jargon-filled way than they already are. And if not, I will hate it more, but only to a degree it will do it's job worse than a human did (presumably it's humans who write all this atrocity, I don't know for sure). And nobody reads marketing brochures anyway. I hope they don't, and I pity them otherwise. Who I don't pity though are lawyers, and if GPT-3 can make lawyers as miserable, as normal people are when forced to deal with lawyers: good. I mean, I don't really believe anything can eliminate this pesky profession (which depends on laws & litigation process being incomprehensible to ordinary citizens), but I can at least entertain myself with this thought for a while.
等级文化擅长从细微信号判断地位，挑剔读者同样能从文字细节读出品味与水准。
文章主题我不太感兴趣，但“日本和英国文化等级森严、层次细微且历史悠久，因此极擅长从微小信号中辨别身份地位”这句话我觉得有意思。有没有人知道展开论述这一点的资料？或者对这个问题有什么看法？
war1025查看英文原文
> Japanese and British cultures are so hierarchical and stratified, in such long-lasting and subtle ways, that they've become incredibly good at discerning status from tiny signals. The topic of the article wasn't all that interesting to me, but I thought this quip was interesting. Does anyone have any references that expand on the merit of it? Or thoughts on the idea in general?
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