20 May 2014

Category error

From the Wikipedia article on a famous author:

He also has a simple definition for talent in writing: "If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented."

In other words, the question of talent does not interest me; all that matters is: has money changed hands, and were you ahead (or even) in the transaction?

I see the point; but there is talent in the world which is not being remunerated. And if he is blind to the matter of talent, that blindness does not become virtuous, just because it is a wilful blindness.

The other error is, whoever plugged that into Wikipedia doesn't understand what a definition is; that remark does not define talent in writing.

Probably the writer himself thinks it partly a silly remark. Someone wrote you a check which didn't bounce: what talent you've got!

2 comments:

jochanaan said...

Important fact left out: Who was the author? :)

Karl Henning said...

Well, because you asked: a New Englander, initials S. K.