Clarity—from the Proverbs of Tharmas Erthona

[shemthepenman]

Clarity—from the Proverbs of Tharmas Erthona
 
The origin of the failure to convey meaning
is in the inability to write clearly:
not the lack of intellect in the reader.

Erthona

Simplistic duh!
If A's "shit" means B's "ice cream": "what we have here is a problem to communicate"*
Not knowing what "ice cream" means is every bit the failure of not knowing what "shit" means.
Confusing "shit" with "ice cream" has something to do with quantum theory.

*From the 1967 film "Cool Hand Luke"

"what we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach."

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Shem,

If you will notice I said "write clearly," what you are saying may be a whole different thing. That is if a cat climbs a tree, don't write the lines:

feline vertical sinews
oak veneer in the veins.

This is even more true if it is necessary that the reader understand that the cat climbed the tree.

em, that's true, I have gone off on a tangent. But like I said, it's because on the one hand I agree with what you are saying but on the other I'm not quite sure why the whole clarity thing doesn't sit well with me. Regardless, yes you did say 'write clearly' which is a different thing than 'being clear' etc. I was just trying to unpack the proverb and get some kind of discussion going.
Yet, I still do not agree with the proverb, at least not the way I'm reading it. You could just as well say that the origin of the failure to convey meaning is in the lack of intellect of the reader and in the inabbility to write clearly. But then that negates the necessity for the universalising 'origin of the failure'; unless both things have to occur in order for meaning to not be conveyed. But that isn't true because it could be one or the other. To write the proverb more clearly (:/) it would be 'the failure to convey meaning could be either in the inability to write clearly or in the lack of intellect of the reader.' but that is a shit proverb because it is just stating the obvious.
I suppose an argument could be made that the writer is the active force in the equatiion and the reader passive, so that the writer fails to 'convey' meaning and the lack of intellect in the reader fails to 'grasp' meaning. But to convey is a binary system, for example, if it is the job of a pipe to convey water to a glass and the glass is smashed one would hardly say that the pipe has failed to convey the water to the glasss, but rather the water has failed to be conveyed because the glass is smashed.

or somfin. I am tired look forward to the next proverb.