Where in the world will I go from here?

As promised yesterday, following is the first draft – rough and still malleable – of the preface to my new book (which itself is barely a work in progress, and hasn't yet got so much as a working title).  But I kind of like the preface, so I'll figure out a way to work it in.  Hmmm.  Kind of a backwards process.
 
PREFACE
The end of the world, when it came, didn’t arrive with a bang ... hardly even a whimper.  Without an instant of warning.  The world, the solar system, the galaxy, the universe, simply ceased to exist.

It was, simply, the end.

Those who were awake would have experienced a nanosecond of blackness ... but when that briefest whisper of time passed, not one remained to bear testimony on how it felt to have the very essence of being sucked from the core.

Then nothing.  Not the blackness.  Not even the consciousness of nothingness.  Just

Nothing.

Suddenly.

No horror.  No death.  No rapture.  No white light at tunnel’s end.

No tunnel.

No soul wafting like smoke to heaven.  No heaven.

No hell.  No devil.

Just the Void – the complete, total, visceral lack of anything at all ....

And God.

My new book

Hard to believe it's been two months since I've landed here in the Blogosphere.

But the time has been put to good use finishing, packaging and sending of my new book to the publisher.

It's called: When Did I Become the Oldest Person in the Room? ... A practical guide for writers who write about life

The book is available now on Amazon Kindle and soon will be published in paperback, to be sold on the main Amazon site and in bookstores everywhere.

Writing a book was easier than I imagined – well, actually finishing a book, that is.  I've been writing a novel for more than 10 years, and it remains today as unfinished as the day I started, practically.  I'll finish that Great American Novel one day, but for now, I'm focusing in the non-fiction realm with "Oldest," which basically is a teaching manual for writers.

Successfully marketing a book, is looking as though it will be much more of a challenge than actually writing one.  If I plan to continue enjoying myself as an author / editor, though, I'm going to have to make the marketing gig work, and actually sell what I write. ("Please buy my book," he pleaded, shamelessly)

Oh yeah.  I've also started a new non-fiction book – as yet unnamed – that will offer up lessons in real life for anyone seeking a high-quality path to their 60th birthday.  Now, this is all more or less formulated in my mind, with an outline on paper, but I haven't got a clue yet how I'm going to firmly tie my ambitious foreward into the content of the book.

I'll polish up the foreward this afternoon, and post that tomorrow.

Verbing

Ever notice that it seems to be getting harder and harder to tell the difference between nouns and verbs these days?  Let me shed some light on this timely topic with a few seemingly topical observations ....

The English language, I’m happy to announce, has now become so flexible that we can email an email.

I think I’ll text you about that one after I google up some thoughts.

Do we use funds to fund that project, or can I just forward the money?  Because, surely, that will adversely impact progress.  Am I making progress here, with this progression of progressively complex examples?  Exemplary, my dear Watson!

I suspect I never fathered a child because my parenting skills were suspect.  But, creativity is the father of intention.

We should really talk about this: Let’s do lunch.  We’ll need a liaison to facilitate that, though; who can we talk into liaising for us?  Maybe we should just get lazy and laze around the house while we dine.

I’ll have to access my schedule to make sure I’m free ... but I can probably free up some time in any case.  I’ll contact you when I know.  I hope our schedules don’t conflict, ‘cause I detest conflict ... most of the time, anyway – I’ve always been a little conflicted about that.

I think I need an organizer to write this all down so I have access to it later ... but I’m not organized enough to locate a retail organization who sells them, so I’m not sure I’m sold on that idea.

(If I stop off at church for a little keyboard practice, will I then be organ-izing?  Or at the pastor’s lectern for a lecture ... will I be sternly lectured if I take the lectern to the rear of the church?  Or should I just collect the collection plates?  Let’s get together and make a decision ... collectively.)

I’ve got a couple ideas about growing your business that might grow on you ... grow, grow grow your boat, gently down the stream (talk about stream of consciousness!), merrily, verily, scarily, warily; strife is jest a scream.

In general – generally, that is – I could be serious when I contend that the flexibility to flip-flop among verbs, adjectives, gerunds, nouns and adverbs is one of the things that makes writing fun in English.  Thing is, though, I’m really just funning you.

Seriously.  Are we agreed?  Because you have the right to object, am I right?  If so, what is the object of your objection?  Affection?  Rejection?

Can you prescribe a prescription to solute a solution for all these convoluted convolutions?  Perhaps we need to engage an advocate to advocate our diverse points of view about this pending engagement.  Lawyer up, as it were.

Or, we could just man up and decide on our own (our owns?) to salute these various salutations with salutatory indifference.  Do you object to my objections?  That was the object in the first place – to place the onus on you.

One time.

For we are one.

But I don’t want to single you out.  Not one single time.

Ain’t the English language great?  Or does it just grate on your ear?  Gratefully, I’m done; I’ve done it.  Put a fork in me – I’m done abusing y'all with all this verbal abuse.

Next: Disambiguation

[For personal writing assistance, go to www.fixadocument.com]

When did I become the oldest one in the room? – Part 3

God isn’t done with me yet.

And if God is still editing, there’s hope for me yet.

I wonder whether God, like the writer, starts with a rough draft.  If so, does he turn loose of the manuscript before or after we land in the womb?

Before or after we’re torn kicking and screaming therefrom?

Before or after our baptism or bar mitzvah?

Before or after our bones are interred in the cold, cold ground?

I think maybe God turns the rewrite task over at some point in our childhood.  Oh, God watches: As I’ve steadily progressed toward becoming “the oldest person in the room,” I’ve felt his hand upon my shaky tiller more than once.

My journey to elder-statesman status was built largely on “wingin’ it.”  Rules of thumb.  Guesstimates about the best course of action or the way best to avoid embarrassment and defeat.

When I was 12, I learned that residential home lots were 25 yards wide ... I could throw a football 50 yards or so – down to Bob Minnock’s house from my front yard – but 25 was a more comfortable hard-spiral distance.

Then in the 1970s and 80s, they shrunk, and my rules of thumb – which were, after all, only rough guidelines to begin with – shrunk along with them.  Older and portlier, I could maybe hit a slow wide receiver at 20 yards ... with no hope of flinging that NFL special more than 40 yards through the air.

Yep, residential home lots shrunk from 25 yards to 20 yards just in time.

Today, with a shredded rotator cuff, such old and comfortable standards no longer seem relevant.

Can’t punt a football anymore.  Handsprings and headstands are out.  Even hide ‘n’ seek with my grandson is a significant challenge, it seems.

Can’t hit a 7 iron 150 yards anymore, either.  That worked out to a little over 150 paces back in the day, when my stride was 2.9 feet on the old pedometer.

Blessed today with a titanium hip, I set the pedometer at 2.2 and still start looking around for my 7-iron shank 150 paces out.

Still, I can accept that.  Most things in life now ... I anticipate every day with relish, but have learned to scale back my expectations.

My life as a Writer?  A constant revision.  And by that, life has taught me about writing:

Do a rough draft.

Edit.  Rewrite. Revise.

Revise your expectations, and those of your audience, to fit the vagaries of reality.

God isn’t done with me yet.  And I’ve still got a few pages to go on the old manuscript. 

Next: Verbing

[For personal writing assistance, go to www.fixadocument.com]

When did I become the oldest one in the room? – Part 2

What’s newer than an old idea? 

It’s one of the perquisites of being the oldest person in the room: Chances are there are at least some jokes I can conjure up old enough that nobody’s heard them before. 

The same things we found compelling about Charlie Chaplin drew us to W.C. Fields, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Johnny Carson, Robin Williams, John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Jerry Seinfeld. 

Any one of those 10 people could do a variation of “Take my wife ... please!” and mold it into a memorable moment. 

That is the Writer’s charge, for truly, nothing is new under the sun.  We all stand in the shadow of past greatness; the mediocrity of the past is in large part forgotten. 

Or, as Shakespeare’s Mark Antony so aptly phrased it: “The evil that men do lives after them – The good is oft interred with their bones.” 

Good writing is rarely made of sterner stuff. 

There ‘tis, fair reader, three paragraphs, and not a fresh thought amongst them. 

Whether a writing challenge is fictional (a Great American Novel to rival Billy Budd, no doubt), non-fictional (In Cold Blood) or corporate (“You’ll wonder where the yellow went ...”), the value in a well-turned phrase is perishable. 

Andy Warhol claimed every person was due 15 minutes of fame.  Assuming a 75-year lifespan, and fame accruing 24/7, each American would have to share that fame with about 150 other people.  Throw in India and China and, well, fuggettaboutit ... 

Looking at it another way, Americans stand to be demonstrably unique for about 1/150th of 15 minutes ... or roughly 5.7 seconds. 

Writing is a way of being remembered for more than 5.7 seconds.  Writing extends the hope that a small piece of the good we do can live beyond us. 

For it’s not so much dying that I fear, as being forgotten. 

Next: Part 3

[For personal writing assistance, go to www.fixadocument.com]

When did I become the oldest one in the room?

I attended a nonprofit board meeting recently.  Looking from face to face at the dozen or more people around the conference table, it suddenly occurred to me:

I’m probably the oldest person in this room.

Over the next 90 minutes, my focus drifted sporadically from the business at hand (probably a function of my newly discovered seniority):

•  That guy mentioned Van Halen. The Stones, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd were in my wheelhouse, so gray hairs aside, he’s easily five years younger than me.

•  I can’t really ask these people how old they are.  Well, OK, maybe the guys, but curiosity killed the cat, and asking a woman her age (at least in my tired old generation) is suicide waiting to happen.

•  Wait a minute, Vicky’s crow’s feet are deeper than mine ... and “Vicky” – that’s straight out of the 1940s, isn’t it? ... no, she talked one time about not being able to take early retirement for five years.  I’ve got her by a year or two, at least.

Once upon a time, I was a boy wonder.  I learned to read at the tender age of 4, and was tackling newspapers, magazines and grownup novels within a couple years.

I was editor of a small-town daily at the age of 23, business editor of a mid-sized paper five years later, and headed national PR operations for a major nonprofit in five more.

Yeah, things drifted after that – a couple recessions, an entrepreneurship that didn’t fly and what-not ... but exactly when did I become the oldest person in the room?

In the car, on the way home from the board meeting, I had a long talk with myself:

“Self,” I says, “you’re getting to be kind of an old fart ... and a curmudgeonly old one at that.

“What could these young people possibly learn from me that has relevance to their everyday existence?  Heck, my idea of a new-age band is Black Sabbath, and Ozzy Osbourne’s out doing commercials for Depends these days, isn’t he?”

How in the world can I stay relevant to the huddled masses, when a multi-gizillionaire like Osborne is reduced to passing himself off as an addled old codger with a fried brain and problems with incontinence?

Relevant indeed.  Sounds like the kind of a problem a Writer might have to face on a regular basis.  Hmmmm.

Next: Part 2

[For personal writing assistance, go to www.fixadocument.com]

Writer's Checklist: Make a methodical 10-step check

Drivers used to know how to check under the hood.  It was second nature to check the oil (when did you last do that, personally? Can you even find your dipstick?  How about battery levels?) 

Today, almost everyone pays a mechanic / computer technician – and, 86 times out of 100, a list of checkpoints covered by a $79.95 diagnostic backs him up.

Thus armed, he verifies the car’s engine, electrical and computer systems are at peak efficiency ... or at least won’t leave us stranded by the side of the road somewhere.

  1 – Word count: MS Word, Quark and other word-processing software lets you conveniently spot check wordiness.  Make sure that count is appropriate for your format and audience, then rip through your draft, line-by-line, and pare at least 30 percent.  Excise extraneous words and phrases, rework verbose passages (look for commas and the word “and”), and focus on redundant content.  If that leaves you short of your targeted length, add something fresh – but at 30% off, you’ve likely made your point; it’s just punchier and more readable.

  2 – Spell check: Let software regenerate everything you learned in 2nd grade spelling class, and then dig in for “your / you’re” and “their / there” errors.

  3 – Grammar check: MS Word, in particular, can at least point to sentences that don’t fit templated algorithms.  But here’s where you’ll really start to get your hands dirty.  Does what you’ve written make sense, flow and comply to basic rules?

  4 – Idiot check: Now it’s time to step back and think things through.  Ask questions that will keep readers from thinking you’re the village idiot.  Do the level of vocabulary, assumed background knowledge, content and angle fit your audience?  Is it politically correct?  (Do you want it to be?) Does your exposition / argumentation progress logically?

  5 – Verb variety: Study each sentence and make a note – mental or physical – of verb usage.  If you use the same verb, over and over, a visit to the bookshelf (or online) Thesaurus may benefit your work?

  6 – Action verbs: If your verbs are cobbled into sentences with  “have” or “is” or “to” ... chances are your writing is passive (Ooops ... you’re writing passively).  If, for example, your product “has passed” peer review (or worse, is “peer-reviewed”), consider writing that it “passes peer review.”  Think your copy is good?  Not in the big leagues: Your copy sings.  Are you accepting an offer to sell?  No, you’re accepting a sales offer, or, just “selling it.”

  7 – Buddy check: It’s critical that friends, associates, brothers-in-law – whomever – read and critique your copy.  Even if your brother-in-law is the village idiot, at least he recognizes idiocy when he sees it – he’s probably an expert.

  8 – Recheck: Take all seven steps, review, reorganize, rewrite, edit and re-edit.  Did a Step 5 change cause some problem with something you did in Step 2?  Even likelier, you probably didn’t do it right in the first place, haven’t noticed it so far, and need the “recheck” to polish the work.

  9 – Publish: The point of all writing is that someone reads it.  And don’t just “put it out there.”  To one extent or another, you need to be a salesman, an advocate, if written work is to have the impact you desire .... whatever that impact may be.

10 – Feedback: In the age of computers, it’s never too late for second-thoughts.  If others say they love your work unconditionally, that’s great.  But don’t count on it.  Even brothers-in-law can be sycophants.  Dig in until you really know how others perceive your work – then fix what you can, re-publish as appropriate, and note the lessons learned to guide you on your next project.

These writing checkpoints combine hands-on and computerized evaluation of potential flaws.

Like today’s professional grease monkeys, it’s not wise to ignore the myriad high-tech tools available to assist in their work.

Still, I gravitate toward the service guy who has a little bit of grease on the soles of his shoes ... whose fingernails are three shades shy of neatly trimmed and de-gritted.

After all, it’s still a car, and somebody needs to poke their head under the hood once in a while.

Next: Potpourri

[For personal writing assistance, go to www.fixadocument.com]

President Reagan and the elusive backbeat

About 25 years ago, a television news piece featured President Reagan in front of a large crowd merrily singing along with a band, happily clapping hands in time with the music.

The blurb was perhaps 30 or 40 seconds long, and it supposedly was a humor piece, poking fun at what clearly was to be perceived as an aging and inept President ...

For, if one looked closely, it became clear that the President (gee, what an idiot!) clearly was clapping out of time with everyone surrounding him – as best as could be seen, out of time with everyone in the huge ballroom.

Yet, if one listens closely to the audio track (which was difficult, due to the guffawing of the announcer), it became clear that several hundred people in the ballroom were clapping on the first beat of every musical measure.

Experienced performers like the musically trained Ronnie Reagan – a song-and-dance man in early Hollywood – know that the clap comes on beats 2 and 4 ... the backbeat!

So ... Ronald Reagan was comfortable enough in his own skin to clap correctly – even though he drew the ridicule of the masses, who didn’t know any better than to clap on the downbeat.

The artist/writer is a performer.  He must know what’s correct and appropriate (i.e., clapping on the backbeat), and he must have the self-effacing grace and confidence to place what is correct and appropriate down on paper.

But, we are told: March to the beat of your own drummer.  OK, you can do that.  But know which drummer you want to make your own.

In President Reagan’s case, he was clapping to the beat of the correct drummer, though it may have been more politically correct to go along with the crowd.

But Ronald Reagan was the kind of politician who had faith that the downbeat-driven audience eventually would come around to the backbeat.

Next: A 10-step Writer's Checklist

[For personal writing assistance, go to www.fixadocument.com]

Percy Verantz: The dogged ardor of the artist

Perseverance.  To perseverate, persevere, endure, pursue, trudge on, stay the course ... to last. 

Percy Verantz is a good friend.  Once a writer has a couple decades of pen-work under his belt, you get to be on a first name basis ... in my case, Percy hasn’t been “Mr.” Verantz since, well, the Reagan Administration at least.

Perseverance often is the quality of a Marine.  In the face of the oft-shouted command, “Don’t just stand there ... DO something!” a Marine hears the voice of a wise drill sergeant who shouts, “Don’t just do something ... STAND there!”

Think about it.

Then act with purpose.  And invite Percy along for the ride.

Percy is the tortoise, not the hare.  Few races are won in the first few hasty steps – particularly if one or more missteps are included in the starting fervor.  Percy epitomizes the enduring stick-to-it-iveness that gets the race won – and gets a job done.

Percy knows that a writer must indeed sweat bullets.  A writer must think.  Create.  Re-think.  Mull.  Shape.  Turn the artwork over, figuratively, in the head – the way a whittler turns a block of wood over and over in the process of shaving away the unneeded portion.

A writer must know, in his heart of hearts, that the amazing message he seeks really does exist somewhere under layers of verbiage, grammatical gesticulation and naive disregard for the subtlety required in the process of communication.

Just like the whittler who seeks the hand-carved pony locked within the unwhittled block of wood.

Like the bullied and abused little boy who digs furiously through the fancy-wrapped box of manure – a cruel prank disguised as a Christmas gift – because, well ... “all this manure – there’s GOTTA be a pony down there somewhere!”

Percy is stubborn.  Doggedly resolute and tenacious – possessing unwavering commitment; dauntless in the face of daunting challenges.  He’s got guts, moxie, ardor, passion.

Percy is Jesus Christ’s Passion on the cross, knowing that to endure the cruelty of a handful of humans for a day would absolve humanity of sin for all time, and place us eternally in the sweet hand of God.

That’s perseverence.  Strive for it.  Strive for perfection.  The end result will not be perfect.  But it is for the striving that we are created. 

Next: President Reagan and the elusive backbeat

[For personal writing assistance, go to www.fixadocument.com]

Cultural literacy and the American writer

More than 20 years ago now, E.D. Hirsch Jr. authored the indispensible Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. 

Hirsch subsequently wrote dozens of works outlining core knowledge critical for students .... but mostly targeted at what parents should be satisfying themselves that their children are learning in school.

This “proper education” is steeped in that core idea of cultural literacy.  The writer should place himself in front of each empty page with a solid concept of the likely level of “cultural literacy” his audience possesses.

In working with ESL students – mostly adults who’ve moved to America and are trying to acquire and hone their basic language skills – one of the biggest barriers is simple cultural literacy.

These intelligent, proud and hard-working immigrants can master the basic words, grammar and sentence structures.  But every so often, a blank look inexplicably crosses their faces.

Over time, it’s become clear that this most frequently occurs when the English phrase presented doesn’t make literal sense.  It might occur, for example, when a speaker unsuccessfully uses “Edsel” as a referent for a failure.

Phrases like “cat nap,” “dog-eared” and “raining cats and dogs” become clear to the foreigner’s ear upon reflection, but that pause for reflection may come at the sacrifice of the next two or three sentences.

“Remember the Alamo!” is likely to have a far different meaning – both literal and cultural – to a Mexican national.

For that matter, try explaining the meaning of the word “slang” to a relatively new English speaker, and you’re likely to find yourself confronting major issues of background experience, ethnicity and cultural variation.

For the writer facing that blank page, even native English speakers pose these kinds of challenges, to one degree or another, and more: Age and generational issues, class structure, political beliefs, sexual preference, work and job biases, for example.

Whether the writing challenge is commercial, personal or educational, the writer has more to contend with than the words he wants to communicate.

He must contend with an audience’s readiness and willingness to be communicated to. 

Next: Percy Verantz: The dogged ardor of the artist

[For personal writing assistance, go to www.fixadocument.com]

Slang-bashing: The Top Ten English language idioms (Nos. 6 thru 11)

Lousy-swell – Back in the 1950s, the “I Love Lucy” show was No. 1 in America, featuring the zany antics of Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo.  In one episode, Lucy and her Cuban husband, Ricky, agreed to take English language lessons, both to improve her tattered grammar and his often-indecipherable Spanglish.  With neighbors Fred and Ethel Mertz joining in, the tutor began the first lesson with the admonition that two words could never be uttered in his class.

          “The first is ‘lousy’ and the other is ‘swell,’” he told them.

          “Fine,” responded grumpy, bald old Fred.  “Give us the lousy one first!”

          .... A swell way to get off to a lousy start, no? 

Bug – If something “bugs” you, it’s bothersome ... like a gnat buzzing around your nose.  But a bothersome associate can be told to “bug off!” meaning to leave (“split,” in the vernacular of the 1960s flower child).  Similarly, an Army squadron might similarly “bug out” if an enemy is approaching in overwhelming force.

You can also “plant a bug” without worrying about funeral expenses for a dead fly: A bug is what a spy or undercover police agent plants when secreting an electronic listening device in a bad guy’s hotel room.  And, if it’s influenza season, you might “catch a bug,” meaning you’ve caught a virus and are feeling “under the weather.”   If you do, your co-workers might “put a bug in your ear” to stay home in bed so they don’t catch it. 

Mission – The Alamo is a mission – a church mission – and the “mission” of the soldiers quartered there in 1837 was to defend it as a fortress against an invading Mexican army until reinforcements could arrive.  A trip aboard the Space Shuttle is also a mission, conducted, appropriately enough, by mission specialists.

Today, corporations make “mission statements” to define for employee the overarching purpose and goals of the company.  But any person who exudes urgency in undertaking a task – simple or complex – is said to “be on a mission.” 

Shower – When a mission ends, the sweaty Army officer requires a shower, perhaps rinsing away the celebratory confetti that was showered over his head .... as a bride might be showered with gifts at ... her bridal shower.

A major-league pitcher gets sent to the showers when his manager comes to the mound to substitute a reliever ... at which time the pitcher might be showered with boos from the crowd.  Meteor showers, rain showers, snow showers – so many confusing variants, so little time. 

Kill time – Finally, when a person “has time to kill,” one, naturally enough, “kills time.”  It’s unclear what weapon might be used, as is the potential punishment for the murder.  But this phrase, cannily enough, always seems politically incorrect and potentially befuddling.  After all, what did time ever do to you that you should want to kill it?

Is it fair to kill time when you’re buried in work? And what is “time-and-a-half,” anyway?  If you get twenty years in prison for killing time, do you get thirty for doing in time-and-a-half?

Next: Cultural literacy and the American writer

[For personal writing assistance, go to www.fixadocument.com]

Slang-bashing: The Top Ten English language idioms (Nos. 1 thru 5)

Sharing the conversation and insights about language with immigrants and others who want to bolster their English communications skills is a great joy ... and a great challenge. 

One of the greatest challenges is Americans’ seemingly fathomless propensity to set aside formal speech in favor of casual conversation.  “Slang” is not unique to Americans, but we seem to elevate the art form constantly to new and confounding levels.

(Doubters: Google the lyrics to pretty much any rap hit of the last 20 years and try to produce a dictionariable definition of every word found there)

Following is a Top Ten list of common slang words and phrases that help mold the distinctive flavor of the English language ... while confusing, amusing and befuddling us on a regular basis: 

Top Ten – A catchy way of listing “bests” or “worsts” in myriad categories.  Popularized when sportswriters started rating college football teams in the 1950s and 60s, Americans now rate almost anything from one to ten (or in the case of a particularly odious late-night TV host, from ten to one). 

OK – The ultimate Americanism, nearly two centuries old, derived from some variant of the German “oll korrect” or from the papers of President Martin Van Buren, who often approved documents with the first letters of his nickname, “Old Kinderhook.”  The G.I. Joes who liberated Europe in WWII found kids at every stop who, though they spoke not another word of useful English, had mastered the phrase “OK, Joe!” 

Fast food – Not a reference to horse meat or the flesh of rapidly flying birds, but to a wide variety of hamburgers, chicken nuggets and tacos that can be quickly ordered and purchased at chain restaurants.  Some will argue that the word “fast” has long since become irrelevant with the evolution of longer lines and ever-slower service as the popularity of fast-food joints has grown over the last 50 years.  Others will dicker over whether the sometimes bland or nasty fast-food offerings actually can be considered “food.” 

Drive – One of those English words that’s not so much idiomatic as it is rich in variant meaning.  To drive is to travel in control of a car – to go for a drive – or to strike a golf ball off the tee.  Ambitious individuals have drive, but their driven nature will often drive you crazy.  You can drive a mule team, or your team of employees; a baseball player hits a line drive, while a good businessman drives a hard bargain.  A bicycle (and various machinery) is propelled by a chain drive.  And, a drive can be a political, fund-raising or military campaign. 

Fly – Similar to drive, in many ways, the slangish uses of the word “fly” are legion: Obviously, a bird flies ... but so does time.  A flag flies, and a door is said to fly open.  A man’s fly is the zipper on the front of his pants – and the black insect that flies into the man’s gaping mouth when he realizes his “fly is down.”  To fly is to travel rapidly by pretty much any mode of transport.  Scenery or actors suspended above a stage are “flown” and the aforementioned baseball player flies out when he doesn’t drive the ball hard enough to make a hit.  We fly blind, pick up projects on the fly, fly in the face of authority and into the teeth of the wind; sometimes we fly off the handle and tell a friend to “go fly a kite” (the friend, in turn, lets fly with a barrage of angry words). 

Next: Slang-bashing (Part 2)

[For personal writing assistance, go to www.fixadocument.com]

More thoughts about English as a second language

Think for a moment about the challenges of learning English as a second language.

Two basic issues – vocabulary and grammar – are challenges common to acquiring any foreign language.

Yes, English has a particularly rich cultural heritage supported by something over 200,000 words – each, on average, having about four different meanings (e.g., a “cast” as a noun, covers a broken leg; as a verb one can cast aspersions, cast a play or cast a fishing line).

English grammar can be stultifying – but probably no more dishearteningly irregular for a squirming third-grader than your run-of-the-mill Farsi dialect.

Spelling – ay, there’s the rub.

Through and through, it’s a thoroughly tough nut to crack; though burrowing through alternatives at a buck a throw might yield a pile of dough tall enough to drown skyscrapers in the borough of Manhattan ... but perhaps you’ve bought enough cough medicine and hiccough remedies to last until the next major drought.

Gaught it?

No, English is a particularly difficult challenge, even for the native speaker.  But a spark of empathy for non-English speakers stepping boldly onto the road to English fluency is in order.

Bottom line: When writing anything – anything at all – consider the prospects for confusion in your work.  Editor would lack paying customers should the English-speaking world suddenly grasp the difference between “principal” and “principle.”

Or learn that “accommodate” has two “m’s” in it.

Or that a “facility” is the shack in the back with the half moon carved into the door (you really can boggle people’s minds by referring to a 25,000-seat facility, when you’re really talking about a large basketball arena – why, back in West Virginny, a TWO-seater was considered quite a luxury).

If you do not write with precision and clarity, you will not be understood.

The general public has altogether too much to read already – too many books, too many sales brochures, quarterly reports, movie reviews and comic books – for you to expect them to decipher poorly conceived copy.

Best-selling novels are translated by professionals when they are to be marketed abroad.  No one expects some poor schmuck in Stockholm to translate a Danielle Steele potboiler on his own.

Don’t make your reader translate your badly spelled, poorly worded grammatic disaster.

Write it right – all of it, all right.  All right? 

Next: Slang-bashing – The Top 10 English language idioms

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English as a foreign language

One of my passions is language, obviously, but my passion for foreign languages in particular is a little strange.

Strange, because I am passionate, but not particularly adept: I spoke Russian reasonably fluently 30 years ago, but am radically out of practice.  I’ve picked up passable Spanish over the last couple years, but no one would accuse me of fluency.

Still, the passion endures.

The challenge makes me passionate.  The opportunity to talk with people I might otherwise ignore makes me passionate.  And the lessons that can be learned through cultural and linguistic anomalies makes me passionate.

The ESL program at our neighborhood church invites immigrants, mostly, to gather weekly with English-speaking volunteers.  The singular goal is to improve their usually halting acquaintance with English, which they are acquiring as a Second Language (hence the ESL).

In learning English, these brave souls tackle a variety of skills.  Invariably, idiom is the most difficult to master.

“Let’s call it a day,” said the ESL instructor, closing the paper-bound text filled with drawings, pictures and translations.

“What else would you call it?” asked a student from Tibet, clearly puzzled ... sparking a 10-minute discussion of five simple words.

Each immigrant/student present clearly understood each of those five words separate and apart from the phrase; it was the phrase that stopped them in their tracks.  There was no phrasing, in the various cultures represented, equivalent to “Let’s call it a day.”

And yet, each had a ready translation for “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”  In Spanish, for example, it is said that “It is better to have one bird in hand than 100 flying.”

Our new Tibetan friend even realized the similarity to “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.”  Be satisfied with what you have.  Don’t be a dreamer.  Don’t put the cart before the horse.

Writers struggle constantly with the challenge of “being understood.”  To several generations of high school students by now, Faulkner’s Sound and Fury seems to require a translator no less urgently than War and Peace in the original Russian.

Even in English, the writer is faced with selecting some appropriate combination of formal and idiomatic language to best express his creative thought.

The study of foreign languages invites the welcoming inclusion of foreign cultures.  The aspiring writer who openly “grazes” on alien customs and unconventional ideas has found a pasture rich in excellent brain food.

Graze passionately.

Next: More thoughts about English as a second language

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Even MORE pet peeves ...

Adjectives / Adverbs.  Good / Goodly / Well .... Well!

You say poe-TAY-toe and I say poe-TAH-toe (and Dan Quayle can’t spell it either way ... now is that EE-thur or EYE-thur?) ...

I don’t feel so good.

A pet peeve that comes up less often – it arises fewer times, that is – is the distinction between “less than” and “fewer.”

As a rule, if you can count it, use “fewer.”  If not, “less.”  As in:

   I have less money in my pocket than I had yesterday.
           vs.

   I have fewer coins in my pocket than I had yesterday.

A person gets “less” sleep, but not after counting “fewer” sheep for “fewer” hours than the night before.

My young bride actually went into a major grocery chain one day and pointed out that the sign over the Fast Lane was incorrect:

   “Less Than 10 Items Please”

A couple weeks later, they’d actually changed the signs, replacing the offending “Less” with the grammatically correct  “Fewer” (the latter seeming, perhaps, pretentiously less palatable).

A similar pet peeve arises when writers incorrectly choose “between” over “among.”  When two people talk, the discussion is between them.  When three people talk, they talk among themselves.

If offered candy, a child may choose between chocolate and cherry ... or among chocolate, cherry and licorice.

So much of writing is about choices.  A writer will inevitably report a discussion between members of the President’s Cabinet ... which technically describes a discussion between two officials (the Attorney General and Secretary of State, for example), rather than a discussion among the larger group.

But sometimes (especially in politics), one settles for what one reasonably is able to achieve – “Do your best and leave the rest,” as my wife says with fewer words and less officiousness.
Take the Trumans, for example.

The story may well be apocryphal, but the President’s daughter apparently heard Harry S telling some reporters that he was going to throw some manure on the East Lawn to get it to green up.

“Mama,” said Margaret Truman, “can’t you get Daddy to say fertilizer instead of manure ... after all, he’s not a Missouri farmer anymore – he’s President of the United States!”

Bess Truman put her arm around her daughter’s shoulder and calmed her with a wise look:

“Margaret, my child, leave well enough alone.  It’s taken me 25 years to get him to say manure!”

Do your best, and leave the rest.

––––––––––

Parting Shot: The devil’s in the details ... Harry “S” Truman is the President’s real name, even though it was widely presented as “S.”  It seems Give ‘em Hell Harry’s parents couldn’t decide between two grandparental names – Solomon and Shippe – and compromised on the letter only ... no period.  And “Margaret” Truman?  Actually Mary Margaret Truman, by birth. 

Next: English as a foreign language

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More pet peeves

A few subtle twists on yesterday’s discussion of adjectives and adverbs:

It is possible to make the request – of your high school English teacher, even – to close the door tight instead of “tightly.”  It implies that you should close it until that closure is tight.

For the same reason, feel free to tell your child to “Sleep tight”  as you tuck her in for the night.

She won’t lie there angrily cursing your improvident use of an adjective.  It’s colloquial, after all, and probably OK ... besides, how does one commit the act of “tightly” sleeping?

It’s like never ending a sentence a preposition with.  It’s something we’ve all gotten over.

And, til the day I die, I’m never going to feel comfortable replying to “How’re you doing?”

Am I “doin’ good” or what?  “I’m feeling well” always sounds a bit pretentious, and good grammar (alone) should never do that.

“I feel good” is a simple statement of being (or a No. 1 hit for James Brown, depending).  Thank heavens Simon and Garfunkel didn’t write “Feelin’ Groovily.”

To a friend, you feel good.  To a doctor, you’re not feeling “well.”

On your college essay, find a way to write around having to make the choice.

That said, you can see why pet peeves can be so much fun ... and extremely challenging at times.

Next: Even MORE pet peeves ...

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Every good writer needs a list of pet peeves

I’m jealous.

I admit it.

You see, I know the difference between an adjective and an adverb.  My kids knew the difference between an adjective and an adverb practically from the time they got out of diapers.

But sportscasters on national television – making six-figure salaries for hanging out and shooting the bull about football games – can’t make out why it grates on the ear when they note that a running back is “playing good this year.”

Drive safe on the way back to the hill country, y’all ... er, safe - LY, that is.

He’s having a good year, or he’s playing well.  Make up your mind, please.

Close the door tight.

Lee.

Read that book real close.

Lee-Lee ... really closely.

“Lee” was a more or less constant companion in our household when my girls were young.

Once they learned to be careful and speak carefully, that is.

Someone would caution us about the icy roads outside: “Drive slow!”

“Lee,” the girls would giggle back, and I would, indeed, drive slowly on the way home.

It’s in their blood, in their genes.  To this day, they know they’ve slept well and had a good night’s sleep.  Be good.  Behave well.

The artful writer writes artfully.

Heck, a baseball player can even hit a fair ball a fair piece and get a fair contract from an owner who treats him fair.

Lee.

In a nutshell, an adjective modifies a noun and an adverb modifies a verb.  An adverb also modifies an adjective (partly cloudy) or another adverb (fairly quickly).

Someone who runs fairly quickly is, after all, a fairly quick runner.

The girls?  Well, they’re good kids and they both write well.  And that’s good.  Makes me proud to be able to write proudly about it.  Proud to be able to say it out loud – to stand up and shout loud .... 

“Lee,” comes the peevish echo ... peevishly.

Next: More pet peeves ...

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A mathematical construct for writers

Good ideas just sorta happen.

Brainstorm.  Churn up the “train of thought” express.

Don’t worry that a good idea is “nothing new.”  Google the key words of absolutely any idea, and you’ll find a couple million places where it’s essentially been said before.

Many an oft-repeated phrase exhibits remarkable staying power: Umpires, for example, have cried “Batter Up!” for well over a century, yet our ear never tires of hearing those words for the first time each spring.

It’s the difference between a classic word that fits like a well-pilled cardigan, and a threadbare cliché on a dark and stormy night: If it ain’t right, it must be trite.

Millions of literary works – books, movies, short stories, TV and radio shows, stage plays, you name it – have followed one simple plot line: Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins back girl’s heart.

But the devil is in the details – the plot line needs a fresh twist somewhere along the line.

Take heart though. The sheer power of mathematics is on the Writer’s side:

    • A word is a word

    • Two words can be rearranged 2 ways, three words in 6, and four in 24 ways.

    • But extend that math to a 25-word sentence, you’ll amaze yourself to discover 15.5 septillion combinations of those 25 words ... in round numbers, that’s a 15 followed by 23 zeroes (1,511,210,043,331,000,000,000,000).

The written masterpiece is constructed one letter, one word at a time.  That’s true whether the “masterpiece” is a tire store’s marketing brochure, Hunt for Red October or the Gettysburg Address.

It’s virtually impossible to plagiarize without paying careful attention to reproduction of a text laying open on the desk in front of you.  Contemporary prose, after all, is nothing more than a fresh look at an old idea.

It’s true.  Cavemen no doubt grew weary hearing the same old tales of the hunt regurgitated around the campfire night after night.

Yet it wasn’t until eons later that a Jewish comic from Brooklyn made a million by scripting that most immortal of comebacks ...

Yada, yada, yada ... 

Next: Every good writer needs a list of pet peeves

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A practical lesson for writers who hate to practice

“Write what you know.” 

Mark Twain famously said it.  

Some caveman probably said it first, followed in rough order by Socrates, Buddha,

Solzhenitsyn and some White House speechwriter who stole it for a State of the Union or Inaugural. 

But then Twain also said, of speechwriting, that:
 
              “The best speech is the impromptu. ...
                  It takes me a three weeks to put together
                  a good impromptu speech.”
 
So writing can actually be boiled down to a simple mathematical sum: What you know, plus with you can find out in three weeks or less – that is, research. 

Actually, a third factor enters the picture.  Things you know to be “a stretch,” or “maybe a little bit true.”

I’ve advised often that the Writer can break rules ... as long as he knows what rules he’s breaking.  Mark Twain had a great corollary: 

“Get you facts first, and then you can distort ’em as much as you please.” 

So with Twain’s invitation to outright fabrication, the Writer is armed with:
          •  What he knows.
          •  What he can discover through research.
          •  What he can stretch to fit his own devices.
          •  What he can fabricate out of thin air and not get caught at it.

Finally, let’s stir a quote from Ernest Hemingway into the pot: “Prose, he said, is architecture, not interior decoration.”

Two points of instruction fall from there ... that pretty prose is best buried in the garden with the other fertilizer, and that building a document from what’s left requires disciplined construction technique. 

The convenient thing about telling the truth is never having to remember which lie you told to whom.  But “truth” in literature can have many shades of gray, blue, jade and purple. 

So, whether you’re writing a book report or a book, a fictional essay or some fictional promotion of your company’s hottest new product, create an architect’s blueprint first. 

List what you know in Column A, your research in Column B, shades of gray in Column C, and jaded lies in Column D. 

Column D usually proves to be highly compelling – and utterly unuseable.  But it’s good to know it’s there, in any case. 

But then again, maybe writing what you know isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
–––––––––––––––––––––
          Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, 
          and therefore are most economical in its use.
                                                                                      – Mark Twain

Next: A mathematical construct for writers

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