Perhaps they're evading the censors. Why else write in code?
Pat Mainardi talked about the political roots of editorially-enforced dullness after Ms. Magazine shredded her classic article on quilts. Interviewed by Robin Reisig in 1973, she recalls: "I always assumed Ms. never paid much so people tossed off their articles for them. Then my piece came back with the barbarous Ms. style. Jerky sentences, non sequiturs, Ms. words.
They would use a bullshit word instead of a strong word. I had the word 'loved.' They changed it to 'had a fondness for.' I had the 'lie' that women were not creative. They changed it to the 'myth.' I complained their rewriting was ungrammatical. So then we rewrote, line by line, back to the way I'd written it. But when the article came out they had changed the title. I had "Quilts, The Great American Art." They changed it to "Quilts, A Great American Art." My whole thesis is that quilts are *the* American art form, undervalued as jazz was once undervalued in music. ... As a critic, I have the right to say quilts are the great American art. They changed it because in *their* opinion it couldn't be. They aren't willing to take the chance, or to let people have the right to take that chance. ... It's sneaky editing, downgrading women's contribution to art. Ms.'s line is women are no good in art. They have been oppressed and damaged by their oppression. They're inferior. It's a goody-goody line: we have to work harder to overcome our oppression." (Redstockings' Feminist Revolution, 1978)
>>Why is it important that stuff not be dull? For one, there's a great
>>pleasure in reading good prose, and suspicion of pleasure is no
>>dobut one of the reasons left pubs are so dull (along with fear of
>>giving offense). But for two, there's also the issue of persuasion -
>>it'd be nice to appeal to people beyond the One True Church. I know
>>some people find this a pointless or silly goal, but I don't.
>>
>>Doug
>
But we've *always* conducted the mass in Latin.