No space for fun.
All arguments from authority
That only missionary position
Is permissable.
/s
Do Don't
Think from first principles Repeat what everyone else is saying Draw from
diverse references and domains Stay confined to marketing jargon
Famously non-jargon, non-marketing language never encountered before in a tech blog
Way to assume your audience are morons.
It's not that hard with "20th century" which I'm conditioned to map to "last century" immediately, but when someone did something in the 17th century I first think "Oh like 1750-ish" and then I realize I'm a century off, and it disrupts my reading flow.
Is there really much benefit in framing it this way?
I see the phrasing decision as raising several questions for the author:
1) Who is your audience?
2) What are your goals for the communication?
I could imagine either phrasing choice making sense depending on the answers.
Also, this isn't strictly accurate: the 19th century excludes 1800 but includes 1900.
"The 1800s" typically refers to the years 1800-1809. "The 1900s" refers to 1900-1909. It is by no means unambiguous, but this is the common and plain meaning, and indeed these folks may confuse many more people by attempting in this manner to refer to 1800-1899 or such.
If we say "In the nineteen hundreds..." we mean 1900-1910. If we said "In the ninteen fifties" we would not be implying a 50-year period, would we? If we said "In the nineteen nineties" are we implying a 90-year period? Do you see how your logic immediately breaks down? Is it mere accident that "the ninteen tens" is a ten-year period of time? Yes it is...
Your assertions and these patterns of speech are just bizarre. I don't know anyone who says, or writes, "the Eighteen Noughts" at all. It is not a thing for scholars of history, for sure.
For a while it has been debated how we'll refer to 2000-2009. Because in different centuries, those initial ten years gained unique names. Some people want to call it "The Aughts" or "The Noughts" but I don't really hear people referring to "The Two Thousands" yet, at all; it's largely "The 21st Century".
> Alephic is an AI-first technology foundry built to tackle marketing's most complex challenges. We don't just advise—we engineer, prototype, and deploy custom AI systems that help marketing teams do the impossible.
I read this twice and I still have no idea what they do!
Also its blunt directness resonates deeply with me, but that might just be me of course. I wish agencies would put things like "Basically we work with marketers on ai stuff" on their homepages.
C’mon isn’t it obvious.
For example, including unnecessary sentences and paragraphs is somethings necessary. You can do without them but with them you get character, voice, a smoother transition. How do you know what is necessary and what isn't? That's the whole point of the rule I mentioned earlier.
I'm a heavy user of those things myself... still: interesting, given what they seem to be doing.
[1] Also, AI be damned, we are going to keep using em dashes!
We're running out of names.
> At the intersection of AI, code, and marketing expertise, we create solutions that were impossible yesterday and will be commonplace tomorrow.
I couldn't tell if this was an example of what they want or what they don't want.
Also the dos and dont's are vague enough that I can imagine the CEO or whoever wrote this saying "no your sentence is bad because it's getting lost in the tacitcal minutiae, but mine is good because I'm focusing on strategic, long-term implications"
- DO: Focus on strategic, long-term implications
- DON'T: Get lost in tactical minutiae
Similarly:
- DO: Acknowledge the magnitude of AI's impact
- DON'T: Overhype capabilities beyond what's currently possible
isn't it easier to just say 'always use your crystal ball to perfectly explain how AI will affect our future'.
> Utilize diagrams, screenshots, charts, and other visual aids to clarify complex concepts. For software documentation, use animated GIFs or videos when static images won't suffice.
Probably means something like "Use diagrams, screenshots, and charts appropriately. Use animated gifs where needed"
Which again is kind of just saying "make it good", but with words like "utilize" and "suffice" which are probably sprinkled in with AI.
I suspect that in some cases it was meant to sound smarter or more formal. Similarly to using "myself" rather than "me" contrary to traditional grammar rules.
But now maybe it's just language drift that I need to accept.
If you want to learn how to write well, your best bet is to read different great writers and notice how they write, what they write about and what they leave out. Take one of their sentences and rewrite it in your own words.Deconstruct every sentence. Deconstruct every sentence.Take their sentences and rewrite it in your own words.
noahbrier•9mo ago