The Writer in Chief

It seems appropriate to re-energize this blog on Inauguration Day, as Barack Obama takes office as the 44th (and first African-American) president of the United States. It's not just about the theme of hope that we so dearly need right now, but it's, as Peggy Noonan points out, the theme of language.
Imagine that: A writer in the White House. It's a been a while. Maybe not since Kennedy (although Profiles in Courage was a bit of an outsourced endeavor).
Noonan wrote in this weekend's Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Obama is a writer, and he sees himself as a writer. It is an important part of his self-perception. He is the author of two books, the first of considerable literary merit. He loves words. It is in writing that he absorbs, organizes data, thinks his way through to views and decisions, all of which adds to the expectations for his speech.

I can relate to that.
On Greeley's Ghost last year, I wrote of Obama's muse, Abraham Lincoln and how gracefully he describes his favorite portrait of Lincoln.
Could it be that a writer--The Writer in Chief--could navigate our troubled waters? We've had a businessman, two career politicians and an actor in the Oval Office since 1980. We've had good times and bad. And, I'd suggest, we've been frustrated at one level or another.
We need someone who can articulate not only our troubles but the way forward. In an age of sound bytes, text messages and IM, the complexities of the world around us are lost, vaporized in unknowing, uncaring, inarticulate ones and zeroes.
With his savvy use of new media, it could very well be that Obama, the writer, is the right man at the right time, able to analyze, synthesize and articulate complex problems and bridge old forms of communications with new, while using language to inspire and lead.
There's hope yet.

Oh, the horror!

Joseph Califano Jr. leaps atop the language of Wall of Shame this morning in an article about kids raiding their parents' medicine cabinets to steal prescription drugs. Said he, in a statement:

Many problem parents become passive pushers by leaving abusable and addictive prescription drugs, like their painkillers OxyContin and Vicodin, around the house, making them easily available to their children.

Since Califano's organization, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, is located at Columbia University, I won't be passive about pushing this link to its English department faculty in case he has a hankerin' to double-check his language before his next public pronouncement.

Where have all the editors gone?

Sports writer Dave Albee writing in this morning's Marin IJ on local rower Mike Altman in the Olympics:

IN ROWING, the focus usually comes from within rather than from outside visuals. That's how it is when your back is always turned away from the finish line.

Funny, I thought in rowing your back was always facing the finish line.

S.F. Chronicle Science writer David Perlman had his own problems today. He wrote about rampant rumors of cover-ups over Mars research:

The latest heady rumor: that the spacecraft Phoenix now analyzing soil and ice on the arctic plains of Mars had discovered chemicals so startling and so relevant to the search for life on the Red Planet that the White House and the president's science advisers have been secretly briefed, even though NASA would not share the information with the public.

The logical structure of the last clause doesn't work. NASA's not sharing information with the public isn't at odds with the White House having a secret briefing. They're part and parcel of the same thing.

To the two Davids: We're concerned about your copy desks, but the good news is we're still reading.
(As for the photo, it's a beauty, and it's from a fine photographer, Kevin Sargent)

(A) wanker

In British slang, a wanker is a pejorative term for someone who plays with himself or is a detestable person.
One example would be Giles Coren, a restaurant reviewer in England, who went ballistic on newspaper copy editors ("subs" as they're called) for removing the article "a" from one of his reviews.
He picks it up from here, in all his foul-mouthed, verbose petulance. At the end of the day, he has a point that the deletion of that single letter ruined a good double entendre. But, really Giles, is it worth vaulting yourself into the modern Pantheon of jackasses to make a point? I guess it is.

(Tip of the fountain pen to my old colleague Paul Dempsey for the article reference).

Perils of automation

By Jacqueline Damian

I’m indebted to my former boss, Greg Lupion, for finding this one:

It seems a Christian news site outsmarted itself by programming its software to automatically change the word “gay” in any copy to “homosexual.” Thus, as reported by a Washington Post blogger, Olympic hopeful Tyson Gay became Tyson Homosexual on the site. Oops.

“I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” by Marvin Who?

Gobbledygook

Gobbledygook means language characterized by circumlocution or jargon. The word seems to originated, according to Webster's, between 1940-45, which makes sense because World War II was in full swing, and the military is famous for gobbledygook.
David Meerman Scott writes this morning that authorities in England and Wales are trying to end its life span here and now. Across the pond, the Local Government Association is urging governmental officials to junk jargon.
Said LGA Chairman Sir Simon Milton:

"The public sector can not, must not and should not hide behind impenetrable jargon and phrases. Why do we have to have 'coterminous, stakeholder engagement' when we could just 'talk to people' instead?"

(Would you expect anything else from a Milton? Paradise may yet be regained!)
The list includes: coterminous, empowerment, stakeholder, slippage, synergies and best practice. If these were outlawed in the United States, business communications might come to a crashing halt.
Onward....
My ex-EE Times colleague Alex Wolfe suggests actor William Shatner is changing careers...radically.
His new autobiography is titled "Up Till Now," which suggests Shatner is telegraphing a move into farming. It's discouraging to see a book--presumably reviewed by editors--titled in thus, when it should be "Up 'Til Now."

What's in aName?

By Jacqueline Damian

My home state of Rhode Island is known for its colorful political characters, most famously Buddy Cianci, a former Providence mayor, convicted felon and pasta sauce purveyor (under the “Mayor’s Own” brand). Lesser known but no less zany were a couple of politicians who tweaked their names to better their election odds.

Back in the 1960s, Mario Russillo added a small “a” to the front of his surname to gain the top ballot spot in the race for town administrator, in the days when primary candidates were listed alphabetically. When challenged in a subsequent primary by a man who overtly stole his strategy, styling himself as Ralph aRusso, he simply tacked on a second “a,” becoming Mario aaRussillo. Note: he won both times.

We laughed at the time, but in retrospect, these guys seem prescient. Sticking a lowercase vowel onto a proper name has become a 21^st century verbal tic.

First came “e,” as in e-mail, e-card, e-vite, e-paper and, of course, eBay, the bane of copy desks across America. (What do you do when the company name starts a sentence? I’ve seen EBay and Ebay in print, while some editors cave and just run with eBay, tossing out the rule that a sentence must begin with a capital letter.)

Next came “i,” for iPod and iPhone and a bunch of others. Whereas the “e” in e-mail and its kin stands for something comprehensible (electronic), it’s a little less clear just what the “i” means. Information? Internet? Or, as our nephew David said as he showed off his iPhone for us last night, plain old “I,” as in me, personally, like the Beatles’ song “I, Me, Mine”? How ironic, though, to take the proud capital I of the personal pronoun and knock it down to mini size.

Moving down the vowel list, I’ve seen the occasional lowercase “u” stuck in front of a word -- a product name, say -- in the context of the electronics industry. To the engineering community, it stands for the Greek mu, which is used to signify “micron.”

With all the other vowels pressed into service in one way or another, can “o” be far behind? Something along the lines of oBrotherwhatwilltheythinkofnext.com might be a place to start.