Comment by mjw1007
5 years ago
Right.
I think the interesting lesson here is that if you find yourself in the position of the tweet's author you should be thinking "Hm, maybe writing blocktext is easier than I'd expect" rather than "I have discovered an unsung linguistic genius".
The skills required are similar to those for writing in metre: have a decent vocabulary and a good feel for the different ways to structure an idea, plus a small bag of tricks for adding or removing a syllable / character.
I love finding things like this on my own, without being told about them. I think that is what the tweet thread is about—just the author sharing their joy about that.
It also might be that the tweet author is exaggerating for comedic value. That’s a thing people do.
This sign of intelligence is also good for talking to people on their level: Explaining things to children and adults alike while meeting the expectations and comfort zone of both. I've always admired people who can articulate their ideas in a broad range of spoken formats for the intended audiences.
Interestingly, some of the best-known examples of people like this are all physicists: Einstein, and Hawking, and Feynman especially.