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Bad advice that gets thrown around too often

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hateradio said:
Divide that by half unless you're bi, take away the people who are not part of your orientation, remove a section of people who do not fit the looks you're attracted to, remove a section of people who you will never meet, keep the number of people in your region, and recurs through it until you find one.

O:

I should try to write it as a method.

Code: 
def love(group, reduce)
    if (group.length > 1) love(reduce(group))
    else group
end
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1% of ~7.107 is still a ton of people :P
 
Style Fox said:
So if a brony comes looking for advice you guys would just tell him to just be yourself.
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Well that's just a Hobbie of the person. There's a bunch if bronies in GAF and if they took the Pony avatar away you couldn't even separate them from everyone else. Of course, don't masturbate to Pony Porn is also a good advice.
 
GhaleonEB said:
Dammit, I was scrolling down to post a variation of that.

"Just hang in there, it'll be okay in the end."

Well, no. Sometimes things do not work out. Sometimes thing stay terrible.
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exactly
still, I have been using it way too often, it's one of those sayings people just need to hear from time to time even if they're perfectly aware it's trite and meaningless
 
Spring-Loaded said:
Stuff like "show, don't tell," when it comes to writing is helpful early on. It's by no means gospel though; Malcolm Gladwell will do a whole lot of telling., then let you know why it matters. I hope no one ever tries to say he should cut back on "telling" christ
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Gladwell doesn't write fiction. At least I hope his writing isn't fiction. The 'show don't tell' rule isn't meant for text books. It's for novels and can be extended to movies, and it's never given as an absolute because that would be impossible, outside of some poetry. And it's a great rule of thumb that I wish more writers and directors took into consideration.
 
Style Fox said:
So if a brony comes looking for advice you guys would just tell him to just be yourself.
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Yes?

See, I imagine a super good looking, intelligent, successful, wealthy person being a brony and I'm pretty sure the judgement against this particular fandom wouldn't be applied to him/her. This judgement comes from people attributing undesirable traits to entire fandoms. I only know one brony in real life, he's a super vanilla guy and I only learned he's into that show because of Facebook. So yes, I'd advice him to keep enjoying stuff he finds enjoyable.
---

BTW my contribution would be "avoid all carbs, always, for the rest of your life". Only because it's not needed, and like any diet, it's not for everyone. Different diets work for different people.
 
Aaron said:
Gladwell doesn't write fiction. At least I hope his writing isn't fiction. The 'show don't tell' rule isn't meant for text books. It's for novels and can be extended to movies, and it's never given as an absolute because that would be impossible, outside of some poetry. And it's a great rule of thumb that I wish more writers and directors took into consideration.
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This was my main problem with Pacific Rim. The fact that the movie starts years into the conflict means that all the exposition on the history of the kaiju and jaegers had to happen in the dialogue and it just made it completely cheesy and unnatural sounding.
 
DY_nasty said:
A 20,000 dollar mistake for me.
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Yep me too. I felt from the "Just get a degree, any degree will help you land a job" advice and decided to finish college. I should had never returned when I left it, Debt less the first one.

One I never pay attention to it is "It's natural so it's better for you".
 
Aaron said:
Gladwell doesn't write fiction. At least I hope his writing isn't fiction. The 'show don't tell' rule isn't meant for text books. It's for novels and can be extended to movies, and it's never given as an absolute because that would be impossible, outside of some poetry. And it's a great rule of thumb that I wish more writers and directors took into consideration.
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He doesn't just write text books either. What he writes for The New Yorker isn't what you find in most text books. Creative nonfiction is more akin to most fiction than a biography.

I still often see that advice used in completely inappropriate circumstances.
 
"You can be anything you want to be."

That's why I'm a millionaire journalist changing the world for the better, right?

"Hard work always pays off."

No. It doesn't always pay off, it only sometimes pays off.

"You'll be fine."

I'm pretty sure some people aren't ever fine, OK or better.

Also something about it taking time to get over people. Time isn't what you need, distance is what you need.
 
Kitsunebaby said:
This was my main problem with Pacific Rim. The fact that the movie starts years into the conflict means that all the exposition on the history of the kaiju and jaegers had to happen in the dialogue and it just made it completely cheesy and unnatural sounding.
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Miyazaki (or at least his translators) is pretty bad with this too.
 
Spring-Loaded said:
He doesn't just write text books either. What he writes for The New Yorker isn't what you find in most text books. Creative nonfiction is more akin to most fiction than a biography.

I still often see that advice used in completely inappropriate circumstances.
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I write Web content and my editor uses that line on me all the time. It's completely nonsensical for the writing I do. It's literally my JOB to "tell" people things. Pisses me off to no end.
 
I was always taught to put peroxide on all my wounds but I thought that I read this was bad since you're impeding on the healing process and stuff. Is this true?
 
bomma_man said:
Miyazaki (or at least his translators) is pretty bad with this too.
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I can see that. I don't tend to mind unnatural dialogue as much when I'm reading it (I never listen to dubs) so it never bothered me too much. Main reason I think Pacific Rim did so much better in foreign markets than the US.
 
Spring-Loaded said:
He doesn't just write text books either. What he writes for The New Yorker isn't what you find in most text books. Creative nonfiction is more akin to most fiction than a biography.

I still often see that advice used in completely inappropriate circumstances.
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Just because an idiot uses it in situations where it doesn't fit doesn't make the advice any less sound. I've also read several of Gladwell's books, and he does plenty of showing in them, but they're still more akin to text books than anything else, since they're often about explanations of systems.

Aesius said:
I write Web content and my editor uses that line on me all the time. It's completely nonsensical for the writing I do. It's literally my JOB to "tell" people things. Pisses me off to no end.
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I bet your editor has a different problem with your writing but doesn't know how to properly express it. People seem to drag out 'show don't tell' whenever they have any problem with any writing when it's meant to be more specific.
 
Aaron said:
Just because an idiot uses it in situations where it doesn't fit doesn't make the advice any less sound. I've also read several of Gladwell's books, and he does plenty of showing in them, but they're still more akin to text books than anything else, since they're often about explanations of systems.
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And I specified that it's bad when it's used in inappropriate situations as if it's absolute. A lot of the examples people have posted so far could be good advice given the right situation.

I bet your editor has a different problem with your writing but doesn't know how to properly express it. People seem to drag out 'show don't tell' whenever they have any problem with any writing when it's meant to be more specific.
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...which makes it bad advice that's used too often! I should've used a "/" between "bad advice" and "thrown around too often" and added another "advice" between the two.
 
Spring-Loaded said:
Stuff like "show, don't tell," when it comes to writing is helpful early on. It's by no means gospel though; Malcolm Gladwell will do a whole lot of telling., then let you know why it matters. I hope no one ever tries to say he should cut back on "telling" christ
Click to expand...

"Show, don't tell" is meant for fictional writing.
 
Fake confidence. You'll become more confident.

Just think good thoughts and all will be better.

You don't need therapy or medication.
 
"If you want to get a girl/guy do this"

No, actually each one is an individual who responds to different things. Trying to find some catchall that every person of a gender responds to in every instance is insane nonsense
 
Branduil said:
"Show, don't tell" is meant for fictional writing.
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Creative nonfiction follows many of the same structures fiction does. I'm referring to stories Gladwell's written about people, like a lot of his work for the The New Yorker, not his books.

It's not inherently bad advice, yet it's often said in situations where it's inappropriate and as if it's a rule that must always be followed.
 
''You're tall, you should play basketball.''
The next time I hear this HOLY SHIT I'm going on a rampage.

''Dude you're better than that''
"Put your dreams on hold and do this or that"
"TV is no good for you"
"you shouldn't play video games they are useless and make you dumb, go outside and play"
"Work hard and you will accomplish something"
"Keep your chin up, something goods bound to happen"
 
Spring-Loaded said:
Creative nonfiction follows many of the same structures fiction does. I'm referring to stories Gladwell's written about people, like a lot of his work for the The New Yorker, not his books.

It's not inherently bad advice, yet it's often said in situations where it's inappropriate and as if it's a rule that must always be followed.
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Show don't tell is good advice. It's not bad advice that gets thrown around too often. It should be learnt by more people including yourself, if your op is anything to go by.

You haven't shown why it's bad, you've just told me, as if I have to just accept that, because your opinion is worth something.

The only time you didn't follow your own advice was when you cited a example. Which is er, showing... I guess, to some degree. It would have aided your argument better to actually have prose to quote.

This doesn't mean I think it is a golden rule that must be observed, because it isn't, and I've not heard anyone describe it as an unbreakable rule.

I will agree with the other golden rule, that no rule is fundamental to writing. Orwell said something similar:

George Orwell said:
I think the following rules will cover most cases:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
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He was talking about political writing of course, but that sixth rule is the one I'm preaching from my soap box.

Sure there are examples, where telling is better than showing, but in my view, more often than not, showing is better than telling.
 
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