Find John and "observations on language and the craft of editing, with additional reflections on subjects of no necessary connection with the former topics," at his new blog, johnemcintyre.blogspot.com.

Posted by Mary Hartney at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                       

When in 2006 I celebrated my 20th anniversary at The Baltimore Sun, my wife, Kathleen Capcara, made a magnificent cake for the copy desk and wrote on it, "20 to life."

I did not anticipate then an early parole.

Yesterday, the grim economics of the newspaper business made April 28 my last day at the paper. It was, as they say in theatrical circles, a good run. I had more than two decades of the company of some of the smartest and funniest people I have ever known, working for supportive editors of the paper, and in all that time we struggled day after day to make The Sun a formidable newspaper. We succeeded more often than we failed, and no man has been more fortunate in his colleagues than I have.

But when the curtain falls, you are supposed to get off the stage, and this is my final post at baltimoresun.com. I expect to continue blogging elsewhere, but you will no longer find me at my post here. In addition to colleagues who have been great fun, I have had the good fortune to collect a remarkable corps of loyal readers, and I salute you all with gratitude and affection. You have enriched my life.

Posted by Mary Hartney at 5:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (102)
                       

I’ve always thought that one of the charming things about newspapers is the way they fess up to errors. The practice probably has its roots in law — making that correction to avoid getting sued — but it is consonant with publications’ efforts to maintain credibility with accurate reporting.

If you enjoy that sort of thing, at the Web site Regret the Error, Craig Silverman republishes the daily corrections of the news media, along with an annual summary of plagiarisms and other misdeeds.

We don’t typically run corrections of typographical errors or slips in grammar and usage (Complaints about the latter categories tend to be funneled to me); instead we correct errors of fact or omissions. I recall a correction from many years ago about a recipe for hearty cheese soup that had omitted the instruction to add half a gallon of warm water. Anyone who attempted the recipe as originally published is probably receiving high colonics to this day.

Superstitions accrue to newspapers like barnacles to the hull of a ship.* The superstition about corrections is that one must not repeat the original error. This, too, probably has a legal root, out of apprehension that republishing the error could widen exposure to a lawsuit. But observing this superstition leads to opaque corrections like this one from The Sun, one of my favorites:

In early editions of The Sun yesterday, the wrong sea turtle was pictured being released in Virginia.

It was corrections like this that led a former editor to issue a firm instruction that the error may be repeated in a correction whenever it is necessary for clarity.

I wish newspapers had more editors firmly insisting on clarity.

*Probably the most widespread superstition is the prohibition on whistling in the newsroom. I was told when just a tyro that it originated because someone was whistling in the newsroom of a San Francisco newspaper at the moment of the great earthquake of 1906.

Posted by John McIntyre at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)
                       

A colleague who is taking a graduate-level course has asked a number of us to respond to questions about the nature and future — if any — of copy editing.

The means of production

Copy editors have always been the hinge between writing/editing and the physical production of newspapers and books. The great change that occurred on copy desks during the last quarter of the 20th century was the elimination of printers in composing rooms and the transfer of formatting and typesetting production to copy desks. Mention CCI., SSI,. DTI, Harris or Unisys to a group of copy editors, and you can watch the blood drain from their faces.

The process has accelerated in this century, with production of electronic copy added to the production of print copy. The new inspiration is the editing of "platform-neutral" copy: text that can then be manipulated for print and electronic publication.

The effect has been that as staffing on copy desks has declined, more and more time has been taken up by formatting and coding for production purposes, with less and less time allowed for the editing. The struggle to maintain the standards of factual accuracy, grammatical precision, and clarity remains.

One side effect: Because writers, most editors and many managers remain determinedly ignorant of the details of production, lest they lose caste, the copy desk’s immersion in these details has not generated an improved reputation for copy editors.

The schooling of editors

It’s impressive that some journalism programs are investing in state-of-the-art equipment for the training of their majors, but they will probably find that keeping the equipment state-of-the-art is an expensive and losing battle. But it’s likely that the young will embrace new technology — Facebook, Twitter and whatever will succeed them — faster than their elders.

What continues to be lacking in journalism education is a thorough grounding in the use of the language. Many Journalism majors have the sketchiest grasp of English grammar and usage, and much of what they do think they know consists of superstitions and bad advice. (Imagine a medical student who had either no training in anatomy or, worse, Galen’s.)

They have also had very little training in the structural analysis of texts. I don’t mean what used to be called structuralism, but the ability to identify the focus in a text, to anatomize its structure, to examine how effectively the elements are organized in that structure, to comment with authority on metaphor and the use of other rhetorical devices.

The future of editing

So long as people have difficulty writing with precision and clarity, copy editing will be useful. Whether that usefulness will be recognized, however, is questionable. The “dead-tree media” — newspapers, magazines, books — are dismissing their copy editors at an alarming rate to cut costs. Electronic media have never invested all that heavily in editors to begin with. These developments have been accompanied by a great deal of asinine rationalization to the effect that writers don’t really require all that much editing.

So, you smart young people who want to get into the paragraph game, who show some ability and enthusiasm for the act of editing, there is an enormous need for your services. The potential inner satisfactions of taking low-grade prose and turning it into something clearer, more forceful, and more precise have never been greater. Unfortunately, you may not be able to land a job, and any job you land is unlikely to lead to prosperity. For you, going into editing will be like following a monastic vocation. God bless you, and don’t forget to write.

Posted by John McIntyre at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
                       

In this, the last post I intend to write about The Elements of Style, I draw your attention to Geoffrey Pullum’s Language Log post with links to New York Times commentary on “the little book” by Language Hat, Grammar Girl and other eminences. Particularly telling is Language Hat’s evaluation of the beloved book as “the mangiest of stuffed owls.”

Of my own comments on the matter, I have only this to add. I have a sentimental recollection of encountering The Elements of Style at 18. But like many of the other delights one may recollect from youth — first loves, kir royales, amateur guitar playing — it does not hold up well on repeated encounter.

Posted by John McIntyre at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
                       

A little digression into presidential politics.

Robert V. Remini’s biography of Henry Clay includes this little nugget from the presidential election of 1844:

[W]hat many of Clay’s critics held against him, it seemed, was his outstanding ability. They did not want a statesman in the White House. They preferred men of lesser talents. Clay “may be a more brilliant orator” than Polk, conceded the Richmond Enquirer on October 28, “but we do not want splendid eloquence to conduct the executive department." He may be a “more dashing politician” than his opponent, “but we do not want any high flying and daring politician, who soars beyond the constitution” in pursuit of some “extravagant object. ... We want no aspiring ‘moon-reaching’ president.

The Republic will sometimes, luckily, place a Lincoln or a Franklin Roosevelt or some other exceptional person in the White House, but a look at that dim group between Jackson and Lincoln, or most of the chief magistrates between Lincoln and the first Roosevelt, among others, points to a strong recurring preference for unthreatening, genial mediocrity.

Posted by John McIntyre at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                       

The latest threat to the English language, public discourse and the intellectual development of children is — wait for it — Twitter. Language Log rounds up some of the most egregious examples of threat-or-menace writing, but that post is two days old and almost certainly out of date.

Nancy Friedman has gotten some attention with a delightful send-up of Maureen Dowd on Twitter, “Ms. Dowd Interviews the Inventor of the Telephone.” In doing so, she reminds us of the multiplicity of these threats to Civilization as We Know It.

There was also radio (“Red Rubber Ball” as a specimen of the richness of metaphor in pop music). There was broadcast television insidiously weakening the minds of the American public (Gilligan’s Island). Now we have cable television accelerating the rot (reality shows, Donald Trump). And Facebook. (Of the “five most” quiz selections, the one that appeals the most is the Five People I Want to Punch in the Face, but, unfortunately, I do not know the identity of the inventor of Facebook’s “five most” quizzes.)

Twitter, like the telephone, radio, television and Internet, affords multiple opportunities for wasting valuable time with inane stuff, and, like the telephone, radio, television and the Internet, it is useful within limits. It’s up to people to arrive at sensible limits. People who waste their time and yours on Twitter would, lacking Twitter, waste their time and yours in some other manner.

I thought that the silly season fell in the summer, but perhaps global climate change has sent it out of whack. In addition to the nonsense about Twitter, we have the governor of Texas apparently advocating secession — an issue we thought was settled one April morning 144 years ago at a little town in Virginia. We have Rod Blagojevich talking about starring in a reality TV show, which would out-Trump Trump. We have George Will carrying on about the evil cultural influence of denim — and providing fodder for Stephen Colbert and half the bloggers in the known world.

Take a break, people. Close this page. Get out of the basement. Turn off the TV. Make yourself a cup of tea. Pick up a book. The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell’s breezy account of our half-loony Puritan forebears, can give you a little perspective. You need it.

Posted by John McIntyre at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
                       

A point that I was laboring to make in the post “Crisis of authority” is expressed more compactly in Sarah Vowell’s latest book, The Wordy Shipmates:

... Protestantism’s shedding away of authority ... inspires self-reliance—along with a dangerous disregard for expertise. So the impulse that leads to democracy can also be the downside of democracy—namely, a suspicion of people who know what they are talking about.

Not that I am saying that Protestantism, self-reliance and democracy are Bad Things — I endorse all of them, and the Internet too. But we should keep our wits about us and be conscious of the limitations and dangers inherent in them.

Posted by John McIntyre at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                       

Posted by John McIntyre at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
                       

The title of this post is H.L. Mencken’s description of his favorite occupation, provoking the dim and bigoted of his day. I will confess to a taste for it myself — and how could I deny it after tweaking those earnest Wikipediasts and the horde at The Web Site That Must Not Be Named? — which leads me today to direct your attention to a venerable group of cranks.

The Abbeville Manual of Style blog reports in "Supreme Court Shakespeare Screw-Up!" on the decision by a group of venerable jurists, inveigled into one of those inane mock trials of historical issues, that William Shakespeare was not the author of the plays of William Shakespeare.

Anti-Stratfordism has been a magnet for cranks since the 19th century, and their numbers appear to be annually replenished. It appears to draw people who are screwy about credentials, since Shakespeare lacked the two, noble blood and university education, that appear to matter to them.

That Shakespeare was widely acknowledged as the author in his own time, that the cranks have to resort to ingenious manipulations of known chronology (Christopher Marlowe and the Earl of Oxford having inconveniently died before all the Shakespeare plays were produced), or that they can only establish alternative authorship through bizarre and unproved (and unprovable) conspiracy theories does not give them pause.

And why should it? The Internet is a real big tent, and it can accommodate many freak shows. And that publishers continue to bring out the occasional anti-Stratfordian book indicates that the easily gulled remain, as ever, a lucrative market.

This way to the egress.

Posted by John McIntyre at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)