Just so you all know what I do all day

[chanaleh]

This is from a book for which I'm currently producing revised pages (that is, entering the copyedits from the page proofs).

For the concrescual approximation and Whitehead, the subjective aim shapes each process of subject-formation and takes shape too as it calls elements of past experience and contextual details into relevance and leads to a unification involving a coherent objective datum felt in a satisfaction that can affect consequent action. The concrescual approximation treats as an overall lure for feeling, or a “conceptual lure,” all that which could be conceptually felt or called into relevance by an actual forming experient in a specific moment. Each conceptual lure is conditioned by the actual world, operative chreods, subjective aims, and the experient’s personal matrix.

Gaaaaaah.
Sometimes I am glad I don't have to edit these things, just enter the edits.

Apparently both "concrescence" and "chreod" are real words. But Google returns zero hits for "concrescual". I'm just saying. [EDIT: Though it occurs to me that, eventually, it will have this one. Eek.]

Comments

[navrins]

*shudder*

Out of curiosity, has a subject expert other than the author claimed that that makes sense?

[caulay.livejournal.com]

It is possible that "concrescual" is specific term in the field that the book is aimed at. And it's possible that the OED would list it. But given that my OED is at home and I'm not shelling out $300 for the privilege of searching it from anywhere, I cannot answer that.

Good luck with it.

[ceo]

Never mind the jargon (I'm assuming the content has meaning to those with a background in... whatever the hell they're talking about), that's just plain old BAD WRITING.

Though I can see how they end up with words like that. If, as I infer, the passage is about how experiences and their meaning for the individual are formed (see, now I'm doing it too), that's a field of study that is immensely large and complicated when looked at closely, but almost nobody does so. Which means that the people who do study it are going to have to make up a lot of words.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming the content has meaning to those with a background in... whatever the hell they're talking about

Look up Alfred North Whitehead (referenced in that paragraph) and Process Philosophy

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Never mind the jargon [...], that's just plain old BAD WRITING.

Yes. Without much effort, a smart person from another field should be able to learn the meaning of a few specific terms and plow right into the text. But with this? No fucking way. I mean, look at this phrase:

the subjective aim shapes each process of subject-formation and takes shape too as it calls elements of past experience and contextual details into relevance and leads to a unification involving a coherent objective datum felt in a satisfaction that can affect consequent action

and only THEN do we get a punctuation mark. I hate that "too", too. Hate.

PS:

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

"felt in a satisfaction"?

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but that kind of writing is just Word Wanking. And "concrescual" doesn't appear in the OED, at least circa 1982. But "concresce" means "To grow together, coalesce."

[caulay.livejournal.com]

It's very definitely Word Wanking. In the subcategory of "Incomprehensibility to Prove One's Superiority" to be specific. So my guess is that it is intended to be some sort of college-level class text. Where it will be adopted as "the standard work in the field" because it helps the professors feel more superior to their students.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

I can sort of make sense of that, with difficulty, but good grief.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

***acid flashback***

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

[mattbeo.livejournal.com]

For a fun bit of cognitive dissonance, imagine it as read aloud by the president.

[besamim.livejournal.com]

No, making anyone read that aloud would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. And in Bush's case, it might break his brain...then you'd be stuck with Cheney.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

Dictionary.com has a definition for "concrescive," which I suspect is pretty close to what the author of that dreadful writing had in mind for the definition of "concrescual."

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I have to concur with the idea that "concrescual [approximation]" is being used here as some kind of technical term. It's on practically every page in the book.

Aside from it having something loosely to do with phenomena of perception and consciousness, I have no bloody idea what the book is actually about.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

I think it's a prime example of the thinking so common in academia that, if your reader doesn't understand what you've written, that's due to the reader's shortcomings. This is of course sometimes true, as nobody would expect a five-year-old to understand a philosophy textbook.

But people who write the way the author you quoted did are doing nothing more than trying to show how very smart they are. It's pretentious, obnoxious, and plain bad writing.

[beardedone.livejournal.com]

I'd agree that the jargon is just overwhelming. However, as I have found out, there are buzzwords that the academic community likes to throw about, probably because they like the sound of the word, and because it allows them to converse amongst each other and not have a person overhearing the conversation being able to understand what was said.

Try "heterogeneity", which I encountered earlier this month. WordNet defines it as "the quality of being diverse and not comparable in kind." I didn't have an online dictionary handy when that was being slung about, and had to figure it out based on the context of the conversation.

Unfortunately, I know people who like to converse in multisyllabic sentences, utilizing vocabulary that you would probably normally find in a spelling bee.

[goljerp]

But at least "heterogeneity" is something which is used in various disciplines. Ask a chemist what heterogeneous solution is, and she'll know what you mean. And, "hetero-" is a fairly common prefex, or at least, thanks to "heterosexual", should be somewhat familiar. But concrescual? Operative chreods? ("Sorry, sir, you have chreods. But at least surgery can fix 'em. Yes, that's right, you have operative chreods.")

Sheesh.

[sidruid.livejournal.com]

yeah, that's pretty common. Somebody in a field will seize on an obscure (and often obsolete) word that they feel is the only complete match for their concept. Then everyone starts using it when talking about that topic.
What really bugs me is when that original somebody has his or her head up their bum and doesn't have a clue what they're talking about (especially popular in corporate culture). Suddenly everyone's using a perfectly decent word the wrong way and thinks they're wise and hip to be using the new buzzword. The rest of us are writhing in agony.

-si
"I'll show you an 'impact!'"

[ckd]

Ow, my brain.

I need to go read some man pages or obfuscated C code contest entries or something to clear that out.

[saxikath]

This sort of thing is one of the reasons I decided that academia was not the place for me. I occasionally have to deal with less-than-stellar writers, but at least I can generally tell what they're trying to say.

[besamim.livejournal.com]

It's the curse of post-modern and/or deconstructionist thought. (In a high-pitched voice) Run away! Run away!

I began to realize this mode of thought had perhaps done more harm than good after I'd picked up, over the years, at least three books in my field (in which I have a friggin' Master's degree), but written in a po-mo/decon style...and realized that what the author had to say was not worth the hours spent trying to decipher their language (or taking headache pills).

The main problem, though, with this thought-mode is that it easily becomes so far removed from external or internal experience that it's rendered useless. I'm reminded of a very perceptive grad student I met, who imagined a deconstructionist scholar jumping out a window and shouting, "This is only a text!"

[quietann.livejournal.com]

Ouch. and more ouch. A few commas would help the flow, but the *content* is empty.

Word misuse...

[rjpb.livejournal.com]

I am unsure of the context of this passage, but a few of those words seem misused. "Concrescual" should be "concrescent", which even Webster's Dictionary lists; the author seems to favor words ending in "-ual" for some reason I do not grok. "Experient" is an adjective (obsolete) meaning "experienced", not a noun meaning "someone who is experiencing", as I think the author intends; the word for that is "experiencer". I also suspect that the author really means "homeorhesis", not "chreod", although those are closely related terms.

But really, that whole passage could use a rewrite.

[scholargipsy.livejournal.com]

Blecch. Grad school flashbacks out the concrescence.

It took me a good two years after finishing my M.A. to get something approximating a readable writing style back.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Huh. As far as I can tell, that translates to "People think of things. Sometimes, what they think of depends on stuff that they did before."

re:Just so you all know what I do all day

[sebastian-tombs.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what they pay you, but if you have to look at that, it can't be enough!

You should be allowed to punish the writer by forcing them to read a similarly abstruse document from some completely different (and hopefully irrelevant) field.

I don't like the first phrase - "For the concrescual approximation and Whitehead", even if you remove the mystery word.

[ed. note: spellchecker rejects "concrescual" and suggests "congruously" ]

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Yuck! After that, you definitely need some time with a good novel...