Hooked on nuance

Posted by: Dr Ashley Tan on: October 23, 2018

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Most semesters I comment on examples of awkward or otherwise poor examples of essay writing.

This semester I do not share examples of writing faux pas. Instead I share a photo I took to illustrate nuance.
 

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A “hook up point” in the #hdb #heartlands — for hanging bird cages & dealing with our low birth rate? #pokemongo #pokestop

A post shared by Dr Ashley Tan (@drashleytan) on May 24, 2018 at 6:57pm PDT

The photo is a screenshot of a Pokémon Go stop that someone labelled “hook up point”.

If you are an old school local, you might understand that this place is for hanging bird cages in a community space.

However, “hook up” has a broader use. When one refers to people hooking up, they are, um, managing the birds and the bees. A hook up point would then have a bad reputation.

My message to essay and paper writers is simple: Do not write for yourself, write for your reader. If you do the former, you are satisfied with what your words mean to you. If you do on the latter, you focus on communicating with readers by embracing the nuance of meaning and taking their points of view.

Tags: nuance, perspective, semantics, writing