Lately, I've proofread some friends' articles, native and not, on political and technical matters. In no case, did I only guide them to my preferred style (poetic diction, preferring verbs over nouns, participles over finite verbs, archaicizing, Germanic purist including V2, no hyphens) and rather enjoyed seeing, sampling (and rejecting) their distinct tastes. I once wanted to ask a friend who wields fiery invectives to liven up my (technical opinion) prose, but realized his style was ill-suited to sewing my bullet points together.
What is beautiful literature to you? Or clear and precise technical style? What do you just hate? Most importantly, what do you aim for and avoid when writing yourself?
I'm curious for opinions on all languages (even programming or e.g. programming code comment style) but naturally English is our community's shared tongue.
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Notes -
Much like pornography, I know it when I see it.
There are certain works of art that cause one to lose faith in art as such. You have to just get away from them, or they end up dragging you down and making you doubt yourself. I suppose, if we can speak at all of "hatred" for ink on a page, it would be all the writing that induces this feeling.
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