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Chris Hamilton <chamilton -at- GR -dot- COM> wrote:
>Someone must have sat down at some point and said, "You know >if we write like this, we'll see x, y, and z advantages."
>
>What are x, y, and z?
I was always told that the old-fashioned academic style was more
objective - not just that it sounded more objective, but actually was.
I suspect, however, two other reasons:
1.) Until after WW II, academia was a upper middle class preserve. Up
until that time, the upper middle class always had a more formal speech
pattern.
2.) The soft sciences and arts wanted to sound objective because the
people who studied them were uneasily aware that their work really
wasn't that objective - certainly not in the sense that the hard
sciences could be.
I'm not saying that they set out to deceive, understand - if anything,
people in these fields were probably trying to convince themselves as
much as any one.
--
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
(bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com) (604) 421-7189 or 687-2133 X. 269
www.outlawcommunications.com (updated 25 Jan 1998)
"Spider spins its heart out, fox goes home alone,
Wisdom is a snake waiting underneath a stone,
Refuge is in silence or in any stony place,
I will not share your pity, your laws, or your disgrace."
--Oyster Band
