Funny Sunday Headlines

Nothing better than potty humor from the newspapers to enliven a Sunday morning:

• From the Marin IJ: Teasing a story about a local female skier, editors on page 1 presented: “Armenian Team Taps Skier From Novato.”

This is one of those verb choices that, while tailor-made for tight-real estate newsprint, really should be stricken from the copy desk’s tool belt.

• From the New York Times, a photo caption accompanying the story "A Balance Between the Factory and the Local Farm" reads:

Pavle Milic decided to serve only Arizona wines at FnB, his Scottsdale restaurant. He says that in blind teste tests, people think that the wines come from famous wine regions.

I don't know about you, but a teste test sounds really unpalatable, until you discover that the singular of testes is testis.

Even so, don't look for Rocky Mountain Oysters for Mr. Milic's customers, it appears--test or no test.

Paging New York Times' Copy Chief

The headline on Billy Preston's obituary in the renowned New York Times:

Obituary: Billy Preston, 59, reknowned keyboardist

Yes, it seems we all knowed Billy Preston.

P.S. Preston died in 2006, and if memory serves, The Times hadn't gutten its staff just yet.

Are stripper-linguists getting a raw deal??

The question is, are strippers Alexia Moore (left) and Falynn Rodriguez better lap dancers or linguists?

That's what put-off prosecutors are wondering in New York this week after the two gyrating gals fought a prostitution charge.

In trying to have the charges dropped on a technicality, the pair argue that language is paramount (and we could argue no more vociferously).

According to the New York Post (and check out the lede):

The purportedly glitchy grammar in the charges against the pair alleges that they "did engage, offer and agree" to acts of prostitution with an undercover officer at Big Daddy Lou's Hot Lap Dance Club on West 38th Street in July 2008. That differs from the wording in the state penal code, which specifies "engage, offer or agree," the gals argue.

This just goes to show that some people can dance and parse language at the same time.

God Bless America.

(Tip of the fountain pen to Duffy Moran for bird-dogging this gem).

A handy guide to dealing with apostrophes

Almost a year ago, I posted a couple of times about the Apostrophe Catastrophe over in Merry Olde England.

Just came across an amusing and graphical rule on apostrophe's from theoatmeal.com.

Cute and it comes as a poster. Schools should buy these by the truckload. No child should be allowed to move on from grammar school unless he passes a test that includes getting the right forms of "it's" and "its" correct.

Death of the written word? Hardly

We worry in these precincts about the death of the written word. But people actually read more today than in years (perhaps ever). True, "writing" has been redefined as more digital belching in many cases. But the immense amount of new information created every second of every day is written. Just spend a few minutes with a good real-time search site like Collecta and you see how much is bubbling up--some of it banal, but much of it worth a read and your valuable time.

HubSpot bird-dogs a study from the University of California at San Diego that bolsters the argument that the written word is thriving. Here's a link to the complete study.

Researchers Roger Bohn and James Short point out that reading as a percentage of our information consumption has actually tripled in the past 50 years if we use words (on printed page or digital screen) as a measurement. The chart shows the transformation of reading in the past 50 years.

So, those of you with a passion for writing, fear not. There's plenty of upside in our world. And given the vast amount of information that's produced every second in printed form, there will always be a demand for those who can write clearly, concisely and cleverly.

Happy New Year: Now Pronounce It Properly

"Two-thousand and ten" or "twenty-ten"... how shall we pronounce it?
Tom Torriglia says it's the latter.

Torriglia, the public face of the National Association of Good Grammar (NAGG), told the San Francisco Chronicle:

" 'Twenty' follows 'nineteen.' 'Two thousand' does not follow 'nineteen.' It's logical."

But George Lakoff at U.C. Berkeley responds:

"It's not wrong to say 'two thousand ten.' And it's not like 'twenty ten' is the right way."

My wife and fellow wordsmith, The Screaming Lady, ponders the debate over a cup of New Year's Day coffee.

"Technically it should be 'two-thousand ten' because that's how you'd pronounce it if you counted upwards from year one. I think we're just lazy."

But if we went that route, Zager and Evans would never have had a hit song in the '60s, or at least one that had a decent meter.

I resolve to keep it simple and give my lips a rest whenever I can.

Where Have All The Editors Gone?

There once was a time when if you wrote a headline like this for a wire service, a grizzled vet across the newsroom who edited your copy would explode in laughter or rage. If you were a greenhorn, it would be the latter rather than the former. Either way, the vet's coffee would be spilled all over the desk, ashtray knocked to the floor--such would be the umbrage taken at the headline and story description of this suspect.
The editor would stand and hitch up his pants over his pot belly and question the writer's manhood, intelligence and college pedigree in language that would peel paint. (At least mine did).
Now pictures may be deceiving, and John Floyd Thomas Jr. could be eight feet tall, but he doesn't look like he weighs 800 pounds. Either of those physical features would qualify Thomas as the "largest ever" serial killer.
Instead, he's suspected of being the most prolific killer in L.A.'s history, a fact that Thomas Watkins notes in his lede. So why does the headline quote robbery-homicide Capt. Denis Cremins bludgeoning of the language?

"If he turns out to be the guy, he probably would be the largest ever (serial killer) in the city of Los Angeles."

We may never know, just as we may never know why serial killers are "prolific," "indefatigable," hardworking," "dedicated," "diligent" or "tireless."

The "Natinal" Pastime

The team off to the worst start (3-10) in Major League Baseball also employs a vendor with the worst spelling habits.

The Washington Nationals use Majestic Athletic uniforms and, as part of the deal, they get Majestic's crackerjack copy desk too. Nationals players Adam Dunn and Ryan Zimmerman played three innings of a game last week wearing home jerseys that read Natinals.

It took a few days, but Majestik officials finally got around to apologizing.

Uniform typos aren't uncommon, unfortunately. Joe Carter of Toronto (below) was an earlier, famous example. And it took him six innings to figure it out, according to Paul Lukas, who compiled a nice list of jersey injustice two years ago.

By the way, for those of you keeping count, the Nationals lost the Typo Game in extra innings, 3-2. Zimmerman was 2-5 and Dunn 0-3.

Word of the Day: Chthonian (gesundheit!)

Occasionally, I come across a word I couldn't even imagine existed, have never heard and couldn't make up if my life depended on it. Today was such a day.

Chthonian (tho' ne un): Pertraining to the deities, spirits and other beings dwelling under the earth.

A variation was used in Meghan Cox Gurdon's brilliant essay in today's Wall Street Journal on eco-propaganda in children's literature (Carl Hiaasen being her poster boy in this case).

If you have somehow missed the fact that April 22 is Earth Day, it's probably because you are grown up. Were you a child, there's not a chance you'd be allowed to miss the urgent chthonic nature of the day -- nor the need to recycle, to use water sparingly, to protect endangered creatures and generally to be agitated about a planet in peril.

This weekend in the mountains, as I lay down on the ground to sleep under the stars, I will no doubt listen for faint chtonic sounds emanating from below me, maybe from the goddess pictured here.
And it'll probably keep me awake all night!

Copy Editor's Lament

A lovely mixture of melody and lyric brings the tragedy of the dying copy desk home at Christopher Ave's site, Music for Media.
"Copy Editor's Lament" makes you laugh and cry at the same time, especially if, like the protagonist, you've been laid off! (And, if you're like me, you met your future wife on the copy desk in college).

An excerpt:

"I'm a human safety net...I can provide punctuation, appropriate for publication, make the capitalization right. I was there to fix your grammar when you thought it wouldn't matter, cut all your extraneous blather down."

Copy editors are among the tens of thousands of reporters and editors who have been cut loose in the past year or two in North America. As Ave puts it in the song, "with only Web sites and TV, nothing really there to help you see."

Yeah. Good luck with that.

In any case, here's to Christopher Ave and all of you who understand the difference between a colon and a semicolon.

New Gig, Old Books

So what's a fellow to do on Day One of his work in the Gig Economy? Unpack reference books from the old gig.
That work, which I did first thing yesterday morning, may be akin to a soldier checking, oiling and testing his weapon. I felt a granite sureness in pulling out Webster's Unabridged, The Chicago Manual of Style, Follett, Fowler, Strunk and White and the AP Stylebook. Weapons and ammo. Check. Ready to go to battle.
I mentioned this in a Tweet and got an interesting response from an old colleague, an award-winning wordsmith in his publishing days.

Strunk and White? Are you kidding? The days of having 30 minute arguments of serial commas and whether one means anticipation or simple expectation are days of yore, old friend.

I understand where he's coming from, in an era of 140-word Tweets and IM slang that's, OMG, 2die4.But sunshine peeks through the clouds. His response coincided with a request from a colleague at Blanc & Otus. A client wanted to resolve an internal discussion about how to handle compound modifiers. He was wondering whether their copy was too hyphen-happy.
There, in the pages of those great language books, was the guidance we so often have trouble finding these days: Use the hyphen to avoid confusion. "Small-business owners" means something different than "small business owners."
So people still care. Are these people graying around the temples, raised at a time when we read books not screens, tapped typewriters not keyboards? Perhaps. But at the agency I got urgent questions from twenty-somethings (note the hyphen) about serial commas, about punctuation, about style. It matters.
People, like nature, abhor a vacuum.While the language evolves as it should, business communications, done well, will always adhere to rules.

In writing, measure twice, cut once

PR industry consultant Sam Whitmore has been tracking editorial accuracy (as if he doesn't have enough to do!). It falls loosely under the umbrella that smaller editorial staffs are doing more work and stress cracks are emerging. He used as an example an error in a Wall Street Journal story about an SAP product. His email blast today contained the following:

It turns out that the WSJ no longer has a copy desk per se. Senior editors still read and edit stories, but recent layoffs have decimated the layer of fit-and-finish wordsmiths -- copy editors and slot readers -- that reinforced the WSJ's hard-earned reputation for excellence. Also, WSJ production systems don't make it easy for reporters see a headline before it runs. This creates risk when stories are technical, like the SAP piece.

This anecdote illuminates a ignored problem within digital publishing: When a piece of content is published, regardless of when it's corrected, the original incorrect version not only can get into millions of hands quickly but can also exist in certain forms even after the correction.
The moral to the story? Similar to a carpenter (who should measure twice, cut once): edit many, publish once.

The Apostrophe Catastrophe Continues

Earlier this month I blogged about about the lingua lunacy that's infiltrated elected officials in Birmingham, England. In short, they're ignoring them on public signs.
An updated dispatch from the Daily Telegraph indicates the good guys are still losing the good fight.

Wakefield Council in West Yorkshire said that it did not include the punctuation mark on road signs "to avoid confusion", even where the name was intended to take the possessive.

One of the good guys turns out to be the uncle of an EE Times colleague of mine, David Blaza.

Allan Blaza of the Pontefract Civic Society accused the council of ducking its responsibility to maintain standards.

He said: "I think it's a cop out. I'm sufficiently rigorous when it comes to the English language, which is a magnificent language, to feel sure that all the grammatical necessities – not niceties – should be observed."

Here, here, Mr. Blaza. Now that said, check out the photos here. The upper photo is from the earlier coverage and shows no apostrophe. The lower photo is from the more recent story. It has an apostrophe but appears to be a different sign placed in a slightly different position near the church.
So there's hope.

The Art of Editing

Our son, a high school sophomore, demonstrated over breakfast today why that adage about jazz is just as true about writing: Often it's what you leave out that resonates more than what you put in.

He was reading a story in the San Francisco Chronicle about a trial of a man accused of shooting the bullet that paralyzed a young boy while he was playing piano.

Here's the lede:

(02-02) 17:58 PST OAKLAND -- The 11-year-old boy paralyzed by a gas station robber's bullet while taking a piano lesson in Oakland still plays music and basketball - but now, he does both from a wheelchair.

My son's suggestion: Replace "paralyzed" with "hit" or "struck" or "shot," and you have a better lede. The changed construction adds an element of suspense to the sentence because it leaves out the outcome of the shooting until the end of the sentence. The emotion-coaster that creates in a single sentence is breathtaking: He was shot! Oh, he survived! He can play basketball and piano! Oh! He's paralyzed and in a wheelchair!

Writing is just as much about engaging with readers as it is about the raw conveyance of ideas and information, even in the digital age. Whether it's in print or online or in an email newsletter, good writing engages the mind.
You do that, and the rest will follow.

Catastrophe for Apostrophes

The people who invented the English language seemed determined to destroy it.
Birmingham, England, officials have decided it's okay not to have apostrophes.

Councilor Martin Mullaney, who heads the city's transport scrutiny committee, said he decided to act after yet another interminable debate into whether "Kings Heath," a Birmingham suburb, should be rewritten with an apostrophe.

"I had to make a final decision on this," he said Friday. "We keep debating apostrophes in meetings and we have other things to do."

Martin, why on Earth are you debating apostrophes? There's nothing to debate. They're a crucial part of understanding a written piece of communication.

Perhaps you should pass a law allowing people to spell Birmingham any which way they choose. Or renaming it. I'd vote for Mullaney's Folly.

Quote of the day

From Dr. Seuss:
"So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads."

Tip of the cap to Mighty Meredith for the Twitter Tip.

How Obama's Words Look to Us

A great way to revise and refine your copy is to run it through visualization tools (more on this in another post). Then there are times when you just want to admire how those words look. Here's what one visualization of Barack Obama's inauguration speech looks like, courtesy of the IBM-backed tool Many Eyes. Click on the image for a better view.

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).