December 20, 2006
Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is clearly the smartest man alive
Clearly.I mean, really. This guy is really smart.
[P]osts oscillate between the uselessly brief and the uselessly logorrheic; complexity and complication are eschewed; the humor is cringe-making, with irony present only in its conspicuous absence; arguments are solipsistic...And while his thesaurus-twisting prose, rendering an obfuscating complexity of overly masturbatory vocabulary, was impressive, I really had a difficult time consuming this piece. One would think--and trust me one would--that if he were truly trying to get a point across he would want to explain it plain English.
I consider myself rather well educated. And I tell myself that I have a better-than-average grasp on the English language.
But, um. Oh my.
I had to read this with a dictionary in hand.
Or is it ironic? And I'm not talking fly-in-your-chardonnay irony. I'm talking when-the-intended-meaning-is-opposite-of-the-literal-meaning irony.
Quite frankly, I can't tell. I'm so lost in the hyperbolic prose that the actual point evades me.
It's like someone driving their dictionary at high speed, zapped out of their gourd on heroin, and then wrapping the thing around a tree to prove their point, while we, as innocent bystanders, comment "Whoa."
The only thing I can tell is why he's an assistant editor. I mean, you don't want to let this guy lead the red-pen-wielding tribe, do you? If you want any readership--or journalists--left standing?
Bravo, Rago.
I honestly can't tell what you're doing. All I can tell you is that it's impressive.
I can't wait until the 37 signals folks get ahold of this one.
Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is clearly the smartest man alive
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