• @[email protected]
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    4320 days ago

    One of the best English classes I took was technical writing: first assignment was to write a 5 page paper; second assignment was to turn that paper into 2 pages; then 1 page; then a single paragraph. We cut out ALL the fluff.

    “and that’s how you write a work email.”

    Fucking fantastic.

    • @[email protected]
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      719 days ago

      When I wrote essays in school I pretty much did the opposite process to get to the length I needed. I think I’m generally just a very terse person. That is all.

      • @[email protected]
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        519 days ago

        Most classes require you to do the opposite to hit some arbitrary word or page count. I only ever had one prof who called that out as stupid. “Your coworkers will HATE you if you take the habits learned in most English courses into the workplace. Less is more.”

        It’s really hard to unlearn after spending years being as verbose as possible to inflate an essay.

  • @[email protected]
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    3020 days ago

    One trick is to tell 'em stories that don’t go anywhere, like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. “Give me five bees for a quarter,” you’d say. Now, where were we? Oh yeah, the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones…

  • @eestileib
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    2320 days ago

    My friend says “long story short” then spends 25 minutes telling me about every detail of his doctor’s appointment anyway.

    • Transporter Room 3
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      919 days ago

      I usually go with “long story shorter…” because I know no matter how much I try to condense things, my explanation will be long simply due to my need to over-explain.

      • @[email protected]
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        319 days ago

        I do this on purpose

        I don’t explain what the right answer is

        I explain to context of what was considered before coming to the answer.

  • @akakevbot
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    1720 days ago

    So I tied and onion on my belt, which was the style at the time.

    • @[email protected]
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      320 days ago

      I do it AFTER the rambling story.

      “…… short story long, (insert tl;dr verbally)”

      It’s like “and then I found 5 dollars”

      • @[email protected]
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        119 days ago

        Some people actually like getting more information than “I went to the store and grabbed some new clothes.”

        • @[email protected]
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          419 days ago

          Yeah but going on and on for hours without the other person speaking at all, repeating variations on the same information over and over, that’s annoying. I’ve seen it a lot.