Super interesting experiment, Terry. Personally, my eyes don't cope with parsing the verbal information when seeing so many colours. I'd be interested in seeing variations where you only colour e.g. verbs or nouns.
Curious to hear of your (assume automated) approach to this.
I really like this - I love parts of speech, etc. and to highlight them just added a cadence. Have to say, my first thought when I read the title was the Henry Reed poem. Which my 11th grade English teacher loved - primarily because of its extended double entendre!
Ha! That's what I had in mind 😁 I have never picked up on the double intendre, so I will go back and look. At school we also looked at a parosy: the baking of tarts 😂 Cadence: that's interesting, and contrasts with the distraction faction, of whom I am one to some extent. Thanks, Bryan
Nov 5, 2023·edited Nov 7, 2023Liked by Terry Freedman
This was great, and I found myself only reading all the words of each color as a sentence, and then challenged myself to fill in something between all of the same colored words. I also found myself identifying what all of the same colored words were, parts-wise. My mind focused on the colors, not the content. (Maybe that correlates with my left-handedness.) My brain went, "Ohhhhhhhhh colorsssssssssss" and that was it for my brain. The words became secondary until I started thinking about what part each one was. Did I already say this was great? This was great!
The parts (of speech) cause me panic attacks, so this one was stressful. But I did go back and try to read it one color at a time, which did make me curious about the minimum elements required for a story to be understood. Could one tell a story with just nouns and verbs? Please say yes, because that's pretty much how I get by in foreign languages :-|
Thanks, Jacquie. Sorry for stressing you out. Well, I think the answer has to be 'yes' because if you think about it one can get the gist or the bare bones of a piece if it has no adverbs or adjectives. I would even suggest one can do without EVERYTHING except nouns and verbs. I know when I've been in a foreign country I sometimes have to resort to addressing strangers with sentences like "Cafe?" or "I go museum"!
This reminds me of those examples of those texts whose words have many missing letters or are jumbled but are still readable because our brains make the connections. The colors in your text were obvious at first but then they kinda faded away.
This post was so interesting. I found I could follow the story - kind of - by focusing just on the verbs in green, although it surprised me that you hadn't highlighted 'up' and 'out' - as in 'woke up' and 'knocked out' - hmmm, I'm thinking about that.
Then I went down a layer and concentrated on the words in grey, which gave me more of a sense of the narrative.
My favourite layer of reading, though, was of the lovely adjectives in orange, which gave me a much greater sense of what the story was about even if I couldn't follow it entirely.
A really, really interesting Experiment in style, Terry - thank you so much for a Sunday reading highlight!
(There's a typo in there... you've put 'purposely' instead of 'purposefully'. Just sayin'.)
Clickbait?😱 Thanks for commenting. I was going to suggest doing what you did but then thought I'd see if anyone did it without prompting. Interesting isn't it? Typo: that must be because I copied and pasted from an earlier version of the story. Must correct that. Thanks for drawing my attention to it
My 2:37am thoughts? It’s... pretty? I await the ‘analysis’ instalment with interest. I can imagine wasting (spending?) considerable time comparing versions. It would be interesting comparing colour swatches to see how different versions look... hmmm...
Wow, that was most off-putting! I had to skip reading pass the first line the first time, then went back to it so I could fully experience the discomfort...it made for a fractured experience, as my brain was frustrated not to be able to just enjoy reading as well as identifying each colour group. For novelty of feeling out of a very familiar text, I'd say that's a success!
Super interesting experiment, Terry. Personally, my eyes don't cope with parsing the verbal information when seeing so many colours. I'd be interested in seeing variations where you only colour e.g. verbs or nouns.
Curious to hear of your (assume automated) approach to this.
To be honest, Nathan, I find it rather distracting. I will check whether one can select just one or two parts of speech
I really like this - I love parts of speech, etc. and to highlight them just added a cadence. Have to say, my first thought when I read the title was the Henry Reed poem. Which my 11th grade English teacher loved - primarily because of its extended double entendre!
Ha! That's what I had in mind 😁 I have never picked up on the double intendre, so I will go back and look. At school we also looked at a parosy: the baking of tarts 😂 Cadence: that's interesting, and contrasts with the distraction faction, of whom I am one to some extent. Thanks, Bryan
I thought it aided the reading, Terry. The green blocks felt like references points. And the story seemed familiar?! 😁
Thanks, Just. Yes, the story was somewhat familiar! 🤣
This was great, and I found myself only reading all the words of each color as a sentence, and then challenged myself to fill in something between all of the same colored words. I also found myself identifying what all of the same colored words were, parts-wise. My mind focused on the colors, not the content. (Maybe that correlates with my left-handedness.) My brain went, "Ohhhhhhhhh colorsssssssssss" and that was it for my brain. The words became secondary until I started thinking about what part each one was. Did I already say this was great? This was great!
Thanks, Mary. What you did bears out my thought that this could be great for English teachers. Interesting that the content became secondary!
The parts (of speech) cause me panic attacks, so this one was stressful. But I did go back and try to read it one color at a time, which did make me curious about the minimum elements required for a story to be understood. Could one tell a story with just nouns and verbs? Please say yes, because that's pretty much how I get by in foreign languages :-|
Thanks, Jacquie. Sorry for stressing you out. Well, I think the answer has to be 'yes' because if you think about it one can get the gist or the bare bones of a piece if it has no adverbs or adjectives. I would even suggest one can do without EVERYTHING except nouns and verbs. I know when I've been in a foreign country I sometimes have to resort to addressing strangers with sentences like "Cafe?" or "I go museum"!
This reminds me of those examples of those texts whose words have many missing letters or are jumbled but are still readable because our brains make the connections. The colors in your text were obvious at first but then they kinda faded away.
Thanks, Sherman. I know what you mean!
First off, I loved the clickbait title! 🤣
This post was so interesting. I found I could follow the story - kind of - by focusing just on the verbs in green, although it surprised me that you hadn't highlighted 'up' and 'out' - as in 'woke up' and 'knocked out' - hmmm, I'm thinking about that.
Then I went down a layer and concentrated on the words in grey, which gave me more of a sense of the narrative.
My favourite layer of reading, though, was of the lovely adjectives in orange, which gave me a much greater sense of what the story was about even if I couldn't follow it entirely.
A really, really interesting Experiment in style, Terry - thank you so much for a Sunday reading highlight!
(There's a typo in there... you've put 'purposely' instead of 'purposefully'. Just sayin'.)
😊
Clickbait?😱 Thanks for commenting. I was going to suggest doing what you did but then thought I'd see if anyone did it without prompting. Interesting isn't it? Typo: that must be because I copied and pasted from an earlier version of the story. Must correct that. Thanks for drawing my attention to it
🔴🟠🟡🟢🩵🔵🟣
😂😂😂 You're completely insane!
Well, thank you very much! 😂 You’re impressed, though, that I got those colours in the right order.....?! 👀
Indeed! 😂
see the episode of Ulysses where he does a virtuoso tour of a whole bunch of English styles. I found it tedious, actually:
https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Ulysses/part-2-episode-14-summary/
Thanks, Albert. Colour me intrigued. Thanks for the link which I will explore imminently.
You're welcome. If I had a post on this topic, I'd plug it shamelessly here /s
However, you're welcome to go though my posts anyway and re-share whatever strikes your fancy.
Thank you, squire. I'll have a rummage.
My 2:37am thoughts? It’s... pretty? I await the ‘analysis’ instalment with interest. I can imagine wasting (spending?) considerable time comparing versions. It would be interesting comparing colour swatches to see how different versions look... hmmm...
colour swatches: 🤣 Thanks, Beth
Wow, that was most off-putting! I had to skip reading pass the first line the first time, then went back to it so I could fully experience the discomfort...it made for a fractured experience, as my brain was frustrated not to be able to just enjoy reading as well as identifying each colour group. For novelty of feeling out of a very familiar text, I'd say that's a success!
LOL Thanks, Mya. It's a pretty weird experience, isn't it!
Yes! Pretty, but weird. It felt like a puzzle, but there was no puzzle. I like the green ones.
🤣🤣🤣
OMG There was one website creator that encouraged that, very popular with kids. Geocities I think. CEvery site seemed to have every effect going.
Yes. OMG
That's a good point, Mitchell, I guess the over stimulation either invigorates or overwhelms!
or both!
I like the idea of heat signature to identify authors. I have heard of that sort of thing being done, but usually through word choice/frequency
Thanks, Mitch. Very interesting. I've heard of that but wasn't aware it was called styleometry
lol re ransom note
Yes, that's a great idea, Mitch. It's probably possible to program that, eg in Excel
Would love to hear more about your database of words