Thursday, November 08, 2007
Anarchy Vs. Democracy in Language
What follows here is a "rant" that I posted in response to a blog by a dear friend and colleague at his site http://www.editorland.blogspot.com/ (which I highly recommend to anyone with an interest in editing and/or the language). It is labeled a "comment," but it honestly is a "rant" -- I should admit that up front. Mr. Editorland had mused, rather reasonably, about the eternal questions of Style (as in AP Style), and how there rarely are right or wrong answers. Whatever the boss wants to do about the final series comma, for example, is his/her choice, and we shouldn't say that it is "wrong."
I was with my old friend up to that point, but then he pointed to the late and unlamented tyrant of the Chicago Tribune, Col. McCormick. McCormick did a lot of insane things when he was running the show, including insisting that the word "freight" be spelled "frate" in the newspaper. When Mr. Editorland suggested that, while we could call such absurdities "eccentric," we couldn't say they were wrong. That tripped a switch in my head (which occurs from time to time) and prompted the following (which, I concede, is in serious need of some editing, but, under the notion that, since I am the "boss" of my blogs, anything I want has to be tolerated, I simply decline to do so):
thinkoutloud said:
Mr. Editorland and I have had numerous discussions about the troublesome final series comma, and we are generally of the same mind. When I have taught copy-editing classes that employ the AP Stylebook as their "bible," or edited publications that have sworn an oath on that very tome, I have insisted on the omission of the last comma in a simple series.
But, when I am the "boss," I usually prefer to use it. It clears up any possible confusion more times than not.
But not always, as with the classic from the TV listings: "Tonight, Peter Ustinov interviews Nelson Mandela, a dildo collector, and an octogenarian." The absence of presence of the series comma(s) can't solve that confusion, which boils down to answering the key question: How many different people was Ustinov going to be interviewing tonight?
It is a small matter, that little extra comma, I hear you say. True, but someone apparently cares about it. Else how could "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" become a best-selling book (and it's about British punctuation, not American!)?
I am a little older (but not really) and crankier, I guess, when I disagree with Mr. Editorland about granting the boss the unlimited power to change whatever he/she chooses on the basis of Preference. In my world, there still exists an alternative universe of Getting It Right that trumps the rule of Preference.
Sorry, but "frate" was never Right, no matter how much the Colonel insisted on it, no more than when he insisted on inserting editorial comment into the news columns.
I was reminded of this even more last week when one of the TV networks aired a promo for an upcoming analysis of the most recent presidential debate that promised to answer the questions: "Who Rose? Who Sunk?"
Shall we allow NBC News to justify the reconfiguration of the conjugation of a common verb on the basis that it Preferred it that way? I think not.
In my copy-editing classes, I always told students, "We do spelling and grammar in order to be correct; we do style in order to be consistent."
So, for consistency sake, I'll grant the boss his/her Preference. But not at the sacrifice of Getting It Right/Correct.
If it makes me a dinosaur to draw the line at the misuse of words like "hopefully," "comprise" (which the daily up in Indianapolis uses a lot and gets wrong every time), "flout/flaunt" (which the sports columnist for said Indy daily butchered recently when he wrote of how IU's Kelvin Sampson "flaunted the NCAA's rules"), etc., so be it (I know, I'll be extinct before too long, but that can't be helped).
Those aberrations occurred not through Preference but something quite different, Ignorance.
And if we are going to let our language be subjugated to Ignorance, as in the time of Col. McCormick (or his modern counterpart, Rupert Murdoch), we are doomed. That is what makes spending much time on the Internet, where Anarchy of language reigns supreme, so depressing.
It would be similar to letting individuals ignore the fundamental guidelines of the U.S. Constitution, with the language equivalents of that document being dictionaries and grammar books. The rule of Preference would be equivalent to letting one person, one "boss," single-handedly do away with something as basic as, say, habeas corpus (oh, wait, someone just did that; bad example). To amend a Constitution, whether for a system of government or a language, it takes a lot more than a single vote, up to and including three-fourths of the populations of all the states.
So that is the one place where I differ with Mr. Editorland. For the sake of consistency, go ahead, Boss, assert your Preference, no matter how eccentric or ludicrous.
But, when it comes to the fundamental rules of our language, residing in the land of Getting It Right, I have to paraphrase Charlton Heston and proclaim, "Not until you pry the copy of Strunk & White from my cold, dead hand."
(Footnote: If you find mistakes in my blog response, just mark them up to my personal Preference, OK?)
I was with my old friend up to that point, but then he pointed to the late and unlamented tyrant of the Chicago Tribune, Col. McCormick. McCormick did a lot of insane things when he was running the show, including insisting that the word "freight" be spelled "frate" in the newspaper. When Mr. Editorland suggested that, while we could call such absurdities "eccentric," we couldn't say they were wrong. That tripped a switch in my head (which occurs from time to time) and prompted the following (which, I concede, is in serious need of some editing, but, under the notion that, since I am the "boss" of my blogs, anything I want has to be tolerated, I simply decline to do so):
thinkoutloud said:
Mr. Editorland and I have had numerous discussions about the troublesome final series comma, and we are generally of the same mind. When I have taught copy-editing classes that employ the AP Stylebook as their "bible," or edited publications that have sworn an oath on that very tome, I have insisted on the omission of the last comma in a simple series.
But, when I am the "boss," I usually prefer to use it. It clears up any possible confusion more times than not.
But not always, as with the classic from the TV listings: "Tonight, Peter Ustinov interviews Nelson Mandela, a dildo collector, and an octogenarian." The absence of presence of the series comma(s) can't solve that confusion, which boils down to answering the key question: How many different people was Ustinov going to be interviewing tonight?
It is a small matter, that little extra comma, I hear you say. True, but someone apparently cares about it. Else how could "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" become a best-selling book (and it's about British punctuation, not American!)?
I am a little older (but not really) and crankier, I guess, when I disagree with Mr. Editorland about granting the boss the unlimited power to change whatever he/she chooses on the basis of Preference. In my world, there still exists an alternative universe of Getting It Right that trumps the rule of Preference.
Sorry, but "frate" was never Right, no matter how much the Colonel insisted on it, no more than when he insisted on inserting editorial comment into the news columns.
I was reminded of this even more last week when one of the TV networks aired a promo for an upcoming analysis of the most recent presidential debate that promised to answer the questions: "Who Rose? Who Sunk?"
Shall we allow NBC News to justify the reconfiguration of the conjugation of a common verb on the basis that it Preferred it that way? I think not.
In my copy-editing classes, I always told students, "We do spelling and grammar in order to be correct; we do style in order to be consistent."
So, for consistency sake, I'll grant the boss his/her Preference. But not at the sacrifice of Getting It Right/Correct.
If it makes me a dinosaur to draw the line at the misuse of words like "hopefully," "comprise" (which the daily up in Indianapolis uses a lot and gets wrong every time), "flout/flaunt" (which the sports columnist for said Indy daily butchered recently when he wrote of how IU's Kelvin Sampson "flaunted the NCAA's rules"), etc., so be it (I know, I'll be extinct before too long, but that can't be helped).
Those aberrations occurred not through Preference but something quite different, Ignorance.
And if we are going to let our language be subjugated to Ignorance, as in the time of Col. McCormick (or his modern counterpart, Rupert Murdoch), we are doomed. That is what makes spending much time on the Internet, where Anarchy of language reigns supreme, so depressing.
It would be similar to letting individuals ignore the fundamental guidelines of the U.S. Constitution, with the language equivalents of that document being dictionaries and grammar books. The rule of Preference would be equivalent to letting one person, one "boss," single-handedly do away with something as basic as, say, habeas corpus (oh, wait, someone just did that; bad example). To amend a Constitution, whether for a system of government or a language, it takes a lot more than a single vote, up to and including three-fourths of the populations of all the states.
So that is the one place where I differ with Mr. Editorland. For the sake of consistency, go ahead, Boss, assert your Preference, no matter how eccentric or ludicrous.
But, when it comes to the fundamental rules of our language, residing in the land of Getting It Right, I have to paraphrase Charlton Heston and proclaim, "Not until you pry the copy of Strunk & White from my cold, dead hand."
(Footnote: If you find mistakes in my blog response, just mark them up to my personal Preference, OK?)
