Some Pruning and Another Freidman Metaphor Basher
Reading good critiques of Tom Freidman metaphors is always entertaining
The Fix
The Passage
The following passage was taken from a blogpost on remote work:
I’ve personally been working remotely for the past 3 years. That may not be a significant amount of time for most people, but it’s actually represented 75% of my experience in the full-time workforce. In many ways, it’s all that I can remember.
Let’s do a little pruning here.
Feedback
Here is the first sentence with some words in bold font:
I’ve personally been working remotely for the past 3 years.
We don’t think the meaning of the sentence is altered if you drop these two words. And for “past,” we’d substitute “last”. The revision is
I’ve been working remotely the last 3 years.
Here is the second sentence with some words bolded:
That may not be a significant amount of time for most people, but it’s actually represented 75% of my experience in the full-time workforce.
This is a pretty good sentence but we think the bolded words could be removed with no effect on meaning.
Here is the third sentence:
In many ways, it’s all that I can remember.
We think the author’s intention is to convey the idea that, because most of her work experience is remote, it’s all she knows. The leading three words, “in many ways,” has become a favourite form of filler. It sounds good but sometimes it doesn’t fit. For the sentence above, we just don’t understand how “in many ways” makes sense when the completion is “it’s all that I can remember.” It certainly works in sentences like “Human beings communicate in many ways” and “He can hit a golf ball in many ways.” But it doesn’t in the subject sentence.
With these suggestions, the passage becomes
I’ve been working remotely the last 3 years. That may not be a significant amount of time for most people, but it’s 75% of my experience in the full-time workforce. It’s all that I know.
Upon rereading this passage, this last sentence doesn’t fit very well because it’s essentially a repeat of the idea in sentence two. Consequently, we’d consider getting rid of it.
Odds and Ends
Another Good Freidman Metaphor Basher
We used to think that Matt Taibbi had a corner on ridiculing Tom Friedman’s metaphors. But others have made solid contributions. Here’s a good one from Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan:
A fact that you may not know is that Thomas Friedman has spent many years as a professional writer.
“When you have a region beset by that many civil wars at once, it means there is no center, only sides. And when you intervene in the middle of a region with no center, you very quickly become a side.”
A center... a side... another side. Sides with no center... a region. I get it...
(https://www.gawker.com/thomas-friedman-has-some-baffling-metaphors-to-share-wi-1629992847)