ChattieG gets drunk on Beer
Word-nerd that I am, I love taking sentences apart to figure out how they work.
Stephen Pinker calls this process “reverse-engineering” and recommends it as an effective — and highly pleasurable — way to hone your sense of style:
Writers acquire their technique by spotting, savoring, and reverse-engineering examples of good prose. . . . Savoring good prose is not just a more effective way to develop a writerly ear than obeying a set of commandments; it’s a more inviting one.
(Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century).
In a new series of posts subtitled “Spotlight on Style,” I’ll be inviting you from time to time to savor some stylish sentences and paragraphs with me. We’ll look at how they work, why they work so well, and what we can learn from their vocabulary, structure, and syntax.
I’ll also shine some light on the stylistic foibles of ChattieG, aka ChatGPT (with continuing thanks to Inger Mewburn for this resonant moniker).
As acronyms such as LLM (Large Language Model), GenAI (Generative Artificial Intelligence), and ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer — yes, really!) worm their way into our collective consciousness, we need to find ways of treading lightly but carefully among them. I’m here to help!
If you have an example of a stunningly stylish sentence or an egregiously awful paragraph that you’d like to put to the Sword (so to speak), please contact me with the text, and I’ll consider using it in a future post.
This week’s Spotlight on Style features a paragraph by literary historian Gillian Beer about the revolutionary impact of major scientific theories — a beautiful example of clear, concrete, carefully paced academic prose. ChattieG’s version? Not so much…
Gillian Beer on the impact of new scientific theories
Most major scientific theories rebuff common sense. They call on evidence beyond the reach of our senses and overturn the observable world. They disturb assumed relationships and shift what has been substantial into metaphor. The earth now only seems immovable. Such major theories tax, affront, and exhilarate those who first encounter them, although in fifty years or so they will be taken for granted, part of the apparently common-sense set of beliefs which instructs us that the earth revolves around the sun whatever our eyes may suggest.
(Gillian Beer, Darwin’s Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth Century Fiction)
Academic writers often assume that abstract thought demands abstract language. Literary historian Gillian Beer lays that misconception firmly to rest. In the opening paragraph of Darwin’s Plots, a study of the relationship between nineteenth-century science and literature, she vividly describes how scientific theories rebuff, call on, overturn, disturb, and shift other forms of thinking; they tax, affront, and exhilarate the people who encounter them.
Beer packs plenty of abstract nouns into this paragraph – theories, common sense, evidence, reach, relationships, metaphor, beliefs – but takes care to balance them with appeals to sensory experience: senses, world, earth, sun, eyes. Her writing helps us see how ideas and theories can take on energy and agency, a life of their own.
Beer’s attention to style is evident also in the structure and pace of her prose. She starts off the paragraph with a short, compact sentence (7 words) followed by two slightly longer ones (15 and 12 words) and another very short one (6 words). Then, just as we are getting used to her almost staccato rhythm, she tosses in a long, sinuous sentence (47 words) that requires us to concentrate in quite a different way.
[Excerpted from Stylish Academic Writing, p. 50]
ChattieG on the impact of new scientific theories
New scientific theories have a profound impact on people, triggering curiosity and discussions. They prompt us to reevaluate our beliefs, fostering intellectual growth and technological innovation. However, they can also create uncertainty, challenging norms and encouraging adaptation. Overall, these theories catalyze personal and societal transformation, promoting ongoing learning and evolution.
In response to my prompt, “Write a paragraph on the impact of new scientific theories,” ChattieG initially delivered a paragraph containing 141 words, significantly baggier than Beer’s slick 87-word paragraph. “Make it half as long,” I commanded. (I’m gradually learning to resist my impulse to beseech ChattieG with a polite “Please can you?”)
The resulting 50-word paragraph — apparently Chattie G doesn’t know how to count! — is syntactically unimpeachable but stylistically bland.
Like Beer, ChattieG grants agency to abstract ideas by positioning scientific theories as the grammatical subject of all four sentences and ascribing to these theories an array of personified behaviors: they trigger curiosity, prompt a reevaluation of beliefs, fosterintellectual growth, catalyze transformation, and promote ongoing learning even while also creating uncertainty, challenging norms, and encouraging adaptation. But what I miss here is the sense of surprise and delight inspired by Beer’s less predictable verb choices — rebuff, overturn, tax, affront, exhilarate — which have clearly been drawn from the fertile brain of a voracious reader and wide-ranging thinker, not from a chatbot’s online word bank of frequently-used academic verbs.
I also miss Beer’s musical sense of rhythm and flow, as evidenced by her virtuosic transition from short staccato sentences to sinuous legato prose. All four sentences in ChattieG’s effort have essentially the same length (11 to 14 words) and structure: “[Scientific theories] [verb] [object], [verb]ing [object] and [object].”
When asked to revise their original 50-word paragraph to include a mix of short and long sentences, ChattieG punched up the word count from 50 to 83 and nudged the shortest-to-longest-sentence ratio from 11:14 to 9:20 — still a far cry from Beer’s spectacularly varied sentence-length ratio of 6 (shortest) to 47 (longest) in a single paragraph.
ChattieG gets drunk on Beer
Large language models like ChatGPT are pretty good at producing coherent, well-structured prose formulated in short, actively phrased, easy-to-read sentences. There’s a chronic lack of character, and you’ll need to do some fact-checking; but the structure and syntax aren’t bad.
When you ask a chatbot to write in a more poetic, playful, or individualistic style, however, the systems go haywire. Here’s what happened when I directed ChattieG to rewrite their original 50-word paragraph in the style of Gillian Beer:
New scientific theories possess an innate power to disrupt established modes of thought, provoking a symphony of curiosity and discourse. As these nascent ideas unfurl, they unfailingly beckon us to recalibrate our cognitive compasses, leading to a nuanced cultivation of intellectual expansiveness and technological marvels. Yet, interwoven within their intricate tapestry is an undeniable current of uncertainty, inviting us to traverse uncharted waters and redefine the boundaries of convention. Such theories, orchestrating a dance between upheaval and adaptation, ultimately choreograph a ballet of personal and societal metamorphosis, an evergreen ode to perpetual learning and growth.
Our eager writing assistant extols the virtues of “perpetual learning and growth” but has apparently never learned about the dangers of purple prose. In this hodgepodge of metaphorical nonsense, nascent ideas unfurl and beckon, intricate tapestries are interwoven with the currents of uncharted waters, and scientific theories orchestrate dances and choreograph ballets, which eventually metamorphose into evergreen odes.
“In the style of Gillian Beer?” Hardly. But good for a laugh.
ChattieG as sonneteer
Speaking of falling over laughing, I’ll end with ChattieG’s Italian sonnet on the impact of new scientific theories:
New theories in science, a realm profound,
With power to shift established thought's embrace,
Ignite our minds and spark a vibrant chase,
In quest of truths, in depths yet to be found.
They urge us to reevaluate the ground,
To shed old skin and seek a higher space,
Innovation blooms, a swift-paced race,
Yet uncertainty can often then abound.
Amidst this dance of change and adaptation,
We find a symphony of transformation,
A call to learn and grow, a ceaseless flow.
These theories, like a river's endless tide,
Guide us along life's intellectual ride,
In quest of knowledge, ever on we go.
Can someone please teach ChattieG how to scan?!
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