Monday, July 26, 2010

Try this out ...

... I Write Like. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)

I plugged in something from a blog post, something from a column, and something from a review. The results? In order: Cory Doctorow, H.P. Lovecraft, and Mary Shelley.

Postscript: I just plugged in a paragraph from a review I wrote of Julian Barnes's Nothing To Be Frightened Of and was told I write like Charles Dickens. Here's the paragraph:
However much Barnes may assent intellectually to the notion that our sense of self is an illusion, it has in no way eased his fear of death, and he should perhaps be warned that faith would not entirely dispel that, either. As Newman observed, faith means “being capable of bearing doubt.” The faith that my own chain of causation forces me to profess offers, not the assurance, but the hope that God in His mercy will forgive me my many sins and allow me, eventually, to take up residence in one of the humbler corners of a much better neighborhood of being.

10 comments:

  1. My results from three different postings? H. P. Lovecraft.

    I don't know whether to be insulted or flattered.

    I am, however, surprised. It makes me wonder about the strategies in the site's analysis.

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  2. I also got H.P. Lovecraft, from three different reviews and a blog post. Meh.

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  3. Frnak, here is a news flash.

    According to your linked site, based on an excerpt that I offered from MY ANTONIA, Willa Cather writes like J. K. Rowling.

    It seems that your linked site is entertaining but not very accurate (or flattering).

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  4. Dimitry answers questions about the I Write Like analyzer in the comments here:

    http://www.codingrobots.com/blog/2010/07/09/i-write-like/

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  5. Well, it certainly got everyone's attention. Cather as Rowling, however, blows the game.

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  6. Oh, I should have mentioned that, later on, I plugged in one of my poems, and it told me I wrote like ... Jane Austen!

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  7. Ah, yes, that world-renowned poet Jane Austen. Huh? I suppose this means you are now persuaded that you are a proud though not necessarily prejudiced prose poet with early 19th century sense and sensibilities. What a discovery!

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  8. Anonymous10:56 PM

    What do Plato and Agatha Christie have in common? They both write like James Fenimore Cooper.

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  9. Anonymous4:45 AM

    I am rather pleased to have been compared to Nabokov first time around. I will not chance a second opinion...

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  10. And I have to stop looking for these distractions...

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