GOOD ADVICE FROM ONE OF THE BEST
I’ve always found the writings of Samuel Langhorne Clemens to be not only humorous, but succinct using colloquial, everyday language. I find this completely different from todays AI generated styles.
3 min readApr 7, 2024
A few facts first. Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain used many pen names, here are a few: Before “Mark Twain” he was, Sieur Louis de Conte, John Snood, Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass and Josh. He used a litany of pseudonyms before settling on the name we know him by today.
“A complete bibliography of Twain’s works is nearly impossible to compile because of the vast number of pieces he wrote (often in obscure newspapers) and his use of several different pen names”. A large portion of his speeches, lectures and writings have been lost or were not recorded by known pen names. The compilation of Twain’s works is an ongoing process. Researchers have rediscovered published material as recently as 1995 and 2015.
Samuel Clemens spent his youth growing up along the Mississippi River in Hannibal, Missouri. He dreamed of being a river boat pilot and this is when he first heard the term “Mark Twain”. This meant that the river was 12' deep and the pilot shouted this to the Captain who would steer accordingly. Pilots had to know how to navigate around sandbars, rocks, tree trunks and other obstacles even in the dark.
Samuel Clemens, America’s best known writer, humorist, lecturer, and novelist who traveled extensively world wide and acquired international fame for his quick wit and humorous quotes. The following is his list for being a successful writer.
1. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
2. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
3. Eschew surplusage.
4. Not omit necessary details.
5. Avoid slovenliness of form.
6. Use good grammar.
7. Employ a simple and straightforward style.
Eschewing surplusage must have been included as his humorous way of saying enough with the excessive verbosity (a quality possessed by people who talk a lot while saying very little at all). This is what AI reminds me of and I’m pretty sure Mark Twain would agree.
Mark Twain predicted his own death. “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: “Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together”.
Twain’s prediction was eerily accurate; he died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Stormfield, one month before the comet passed Earth that year.
Terrell Kaucher
The-Idea-Man.org
