Yeah, I agree that there are distinctions everywhere, and precision is often a good thing. But the thing that ticks me off isn’t quite precision, it’s something else… Remember the example Orwell gives in his essay:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
vs. the same thing in modernese:
Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
Your argument can also show that the second example is more precise, and thus better, but to me it feels worse somehow.
Going back to your post:
I came to see a pattern where addicts who relapse seem to face not just the primary stressors of withdrawal effects or hardship around behavior change, but they also seem to generate secondary stressors in their own mind.
Can you hear how it sounds like the second of Orwell’s examples? Not all the way there, but maybe like 50% of the way there?
That said, I’m not going for poetics or linguistic beauty — I’m looking for an easily-used technical term.
I’m not particularly attached to “secondary stressors” — I just want a precise phrase for the phenomenon. Other people in the thread proposed other ones, EX “worrying about worrying” (which is close but I think again not as precise).
Yeah, I agree that there are distinctions everywhere, and precision is often a good thing. But the thing that ticks me off isn’t quite precision, it’s something else… Remember the example Orwell gives in his essay:
vs. the same thing in modernese:
Your argument can also show that the second example is more precise, and thus better, but to me it feels worse somehow.
Going back to your post:
Can you hear how it sounds like the second of Orwell’s examples? Not all the way there, but maybe like 50% of the way there?
That’s one of my favorite essays, incidentally.
That said, I’m not going for poetics or linguistic beauty — I’m looking for an easily-used technical term.
I’m not particularly attached to “secondary stressors” — I just want a precise phrase for the phenomenon. Other people in the thread proposed other ones, EX “worrying about worrying” (which is close but I think again not as precise).