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Style

I read through my writing yesterday and noticed a verbal tic: I overuse the words "certainly" and "of course."  Have to cut back.  I have a lot of "theses" or "claims" -- an interesting way to frame a topic, but I need to make them into a starting point for further research and not just prop them up with bluster and a few probabilities(*).

(*)Sometimes in online discussions, B asks for statistics after A makes some claim -- when in fact A has provided an argument why the claim is probable that ought to have been addressed.  Calls for evidence might mean nothing more than this, that the argument has not been expressed in the correct or else the expected form(**).  It's always easier to shift the focus to form when you're at a loss how to dispute the content.

(**)Criticisms of grammar also become merely formal -- especially when the criticisms focus on spelling.  The distinction between "there" and "their" in writing is a formality when there is no distinction between them in speech (homonyms) and because there is rarely any danger of misunderstanding.  We always get hung up on the violation of some custom or other: all spelling is custom and a lot of grammar besides! -- forgetting the magic of spelling itself, that marvelous device by means of which we represent the sounds of our words as we hear them. Someone who "misspells" words always but accurately represents what they are to his ear no doubt possesses more of the science of spelling than someone who has learned to produce every word as it is customarily spelled by rote -- because the former thinks when he spells his words.  And grammar -- for instance, "who" and "whom," or "he" and "they"?  Custom is king.  "But we lose valuable distinctions!" -- And make them, too!

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