
Ventilated Prose (2009) - sequoia
https://vanemden.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/ventilated-prose/
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hydrox24
This reminds me of Sun Tzu's Art of War. His writing certainly _is_ a kind of
poetry, but the lines and stanzas are broken down not only by semantics, as
done by Buckminster Fuller, but also by concept.

Ventilated prose isn't only useful for reading; it is also useful for
memorising.

As an addendum, I wonder how much of this is down to poor typography obscuring
the rhythm of the text in the first place. Perhaps this is a good substitution
for anything that doesn't reach the level of a book or big report. Good for
anything that doesn't quite deserve typographic treatment by a pro.

~~~
alan-crowe
Example of memorising: trying to keep the definitions of open and closed
formulae straight. Shoenfield writes "A formula A is closed if no variable is
free in A." which I memorised laid out as

A formula A

is closed if

no variable is

free in A

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lubujackson
I quite like the idea and find myself doing something similar, especially when
writing for clarity is key. I think any easy way of automating this would be
to line break at every subordinate clause and break at commas whenever the
syllable count dictates a breath.

This could also be a trick for speed reading, as the structure of the text
would be more obvious and visible on the page.

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mattalbie
See also:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4642395](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4642395)

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ssivark
Isn’t this the point of punctuation?

~~~
grasshopperpurp
Yes, but, formatting is also useful. Most of us have come across a giant block
of text, where the writer failed to break it into proper paragraphs. Most
people who commit this sin are also poor writers, and that doesn't help, but
the aesthetics of words on the page absolutely affect the way the reader
experiences the information.

