Spelling counts

FROM THE ARCHIVE -- The spelling system of any language is, at best, only an approximation of pronunciation. Writing is, in fact, a totally arbitrary system of symbols and marks meant to convey the sounds of a language; and compared to modern gadgetry, a very primitive way of recording speech.
   Language changes with time. What is agreed on as a convenient and conventional way of recording speech with certain symbols may, in a few years, no longer accurately represent the way people speak. Modern English orthography more nearly represents the pronunciation of Queen Elizabeth I than the current monarch. Nevertheless, we retain the spelling system because it would be neither feasible nor practical to republish all the books and re-educate all the people. In one generation, several hundred years worth of books would be unreadable.
   The point is this: Despite the inconsistencies in English orthography and the sometimes wide disparity between spelling and pronunciation, the use of "standard" written forms remains a mark of literacy and education. And that allows you to achieve other goals, one being the smooth communication of ideas. In the writing biz, we are judged by our product; the symbols representing words, which we commit to paper.
   MORAL: Pronounce as you wish, but hew to the spelling conventions.

TEA PARTY ECONOMICS -- Free the Fortune 500!

Government and media

DOMINATION -- We often hear the claim that the so-called "liberal" media are dominated by the government, and "only lets the public know what government wants the public to know." If so, how is it that there is so much negative, embarrassing information published about government? The complaint is usually registered by Republican conservatives, when Democrats are in power. But newspapers also publish plenty of information about Republican activities. So, if the "liberal" media are so biased in favor of Democrats, how is it we know so much about Sarah Palin? How to explain GOP success? How is it that Richard Nixon was re-elected with 61 percent of the vote, carrying 49 states? Remember also Abu Graib, Guantanamo, My Lai, Watergate, and the failure of pre-9/11 intelligence, not to mention the current spate of information outed by Wikileaks. With all the information critical of both sides available, the claim of "liberal domination" and influence on the electorate falls.
   There are many things that can be said about the news media in America, but lack of independence is not one of them. Incompetence, sometimes, yes. But the same can be said about politicians. Not all politicians are independent and/or competent.
   Edwin Newman once said that the Constitution guarantees a free press; it does not guarantee a fair press. Nor, I would add, does it guarantee a competent press. For many years, especially in the 19th and early 20th centuries, newspapers were often rabidly, even proudly,  partisan in their coverage. One way to ensure competence in any profession would be through licensing, as is done with plumbers, electricians, and medical professionals. However, if government can issue a license, it can also take away a license. In journalism, that's too high a risk to take.

FIVE C's OF GOOD WRITING -- Clear, Concise, Consistent, Complete, and Correct.

DUMBEST INTRO AWARD -- In a report on the weather and declining temperatures, the NBC presenter in Philadelphia said, "It feels like the end of November out there!" The date was Nov. 27. Duh!

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -- There's a thin line between news and gossip. As David Brinkley defined it, "News is something worth knowing." Even so, defining what is worth knowing is subjective. To some folks, knowing what Snooki and the Kardashians are up to is more important than foreign policy, the stock market, pollution or the latest Middle East crisis.

Parallel-ogram

FOLLOW FOUL -- The manuals insist that writers keep constructions parallel and never end a sentence with a preposition. Sometimes, however, that can result in a sentence that trips on itself. This example is from The Moral Landscape, a new book by Sam Harris: "Controversies about human values are controversies about which science officially has no opinion." The opening phrase, "Controversies about ..." sets up the reader for the second, identical phrase, leading the reader to expect mention of a second controversy. Instead, Harris switches to the prepositional, "about which ..." forcing readers to rescan the sentence. Grammatical rules are good, but sometimes flexibility is better. Or, as Winston S. Churchill said of the rule concerning prepositional endings: "That is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."

SILLY QUESTIONS -- Barbara Walters recently asked Sarah Palin, "If you decide to run against Barack Obama, do you think you could win?" Palin's reply: "I believe so." Of course she would say yes. What political candidate enters a contest expecting to lose?
         
GLEANINGS of an Itinerant Speller -- "Run the gambit." The word should be "gamut." It comes from early music notation, where "gamma" is the name of the basic tone, and "ut" is the first note of the scale. It began:
          UT-queant laxis
          RE-sonare fibris
          MI-ra gestorum
          FA-muli tuorum
          SOL-ve polluti
and  ended with DO-mine. Later revisions brought about the familiar DO RE MI version we all learned as children. So, to "run the gamut" is to travel the entire range, from gamma to ut. "Gambit," by the way, is used in chess to refer to the sacrifice of a pawn to gain an advantage. The word is related to the Italian gamba (leg), as in viola da gamba, a stringed instrument larger than the violin that is played resting on the knee. American slang used to refer to a woman's beautiful legs as "gams," and strategists refer to gaining an advantage as "getting a leg up."

BULLY FINANCE -- With the Irish financial system in turmoil, commentators have been referring to "bond vigilantes" or "market predators," to describe investors who move in on weak systems to take advantage of rate differentials. Pug Mahoney, our market sage from across the pond, said that in a schoolyard, they would be called bullies, and would be known by name and face. But in international finance, media mavens and the general public know them only as mysterious "men in gray suits." Maybe, says the Sage, they should be identified as those who knock over the first domino.

The Druid Way

  1/ You are a worthwhile person
  2/ Believe in yourself
  3/ Think for yourself
  4/ Follow your bliss
  5/ Seek beauty in life, in Nature, in other creatures
  6/ Enjoy beauty in music and art as you perceive it.
      Don't let others tell you what you "must" enjoy
  7/ Read. Anything and everything that pleases you
  8/ Do all things in moderation
  9/ Say please and thank you
10/ Find someone to love. Tell them so
11/ Seek balance in all things
12/ If it harm none, do what you will

Pointing

PUNCTILIOUS -- Punctuation and punctual come from the same root as point and pointing. We speak of arriving "on the dot." In Spanish, the phrase for arriving on time is "en punto." Punctuation refers to putting points (dots and other marks) into a sentence to clarify meaning. Leaving out necessary points makes for foggy reading. E! News left out an apostrophe in a caption phrase "It's the bees knees," making it unclear whether the knees belong to one bee or several.

INSIDE OR OUTSIDE -- Periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks for the sole reason that it looks better. Other marks can be inside or outside, depending on whether the punctuator is part of the quoted material. Example A: "How much is that?" he asked.  Example B: Did he say "no trespassing"? Note also no double punctuation in Example A. Don't use both comma and question mark inside the closing quote.

HYPHEN HAVEN -- For those unsure on the use of the hyphen, consider this: The New York Times used "royal-watchers" to refer to those who watch the royals. This differentiates this crowd from "royal watchers," who would be royal persons watching someone or something else.

WHO ELSE? -- NBC News reported that Lisa Murkowski was "only the second person since 1954 to win election by write-in vote." Pug Mahoney spent the rest of the evening wondering who the other was. For the record, the other write-in winner was Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.

ONE WORD OR TWO -- The English language has the wonderful capacity to use a word as a noun, verb or adjective without changing its form. But when a verb phrase becomes a noun, a two-word phrase will often become a single word. For example, the verb phrase "roll over" becomes the noun "rollover," "crack down" becomes "crackdown," and "turn around" becomes "turnaround." Some writers, however, use the closed-up noun form when they should retain the two-word verb phrase. Careful writers maintain the difference.

GLEANINGS of an Itinerant Speller -- It's "Manhattan," with the letter a throughout. No e, if you please. The word counterinsurgency would be more readable with a hyphen. Make it counter-insurgency.

Forecasting

CAUTION -- A master programmer and senior computer exec once said, "Life is a series of if-then statements." Economic forecasters rely on the ceteris paribus (other things equal) assumption. Which is to say, if a trend continues as it has in the past, and if all other factors stay the same, then we can predict such-and-so. However, in the real world, nothing stays the same -- other things never remain equal. It's like forecasting the weather.
   Many economists are reluctant to make forecasts, but their corporate and government employers, as well as the media and the general public, insist on wanting to know what will happen in the future. And if one economist won't provide a forecast, or couches it in too many CYA phrases, then news reporters go to another, who talks with a greater degree of confidence. (Note all the if-then statements in the above.) There are no guarantees. The best we can hope for, based on the heroic assumption that there will be no major changes, is a reasonable degree of accuracy. But even this does not define "major" change, or "reasonable" degree of accuracy.

PYTHON ALERT -- TV promos for the reality series "Sarah Palin's Alaska" have her saying she'd rather be outdoors than in a political office. Maybe she never wanted to be governor at all. She always wanted to be a lumberjack. Cue the music:
   She's a lumberjack and she's OK
   She sleeps all night and she works all day
   She cuts down trees, she skips and jumps ...

GLEANINGS of an Itinerant Speller -- Legimate.  We're not sure what that means, but adding -ti- in the middle would make it a legitimate word.

FROM THE RIM -- Sarcasm is wasted on the young, destructive to the old, and useless against the self righteous.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -- Be alert. The world needs more lerts.

Reactions

EDUCATION -- American students score poorly in math compared to other nations, and have shown a sharp increase in attention deficit disorder. Are the two related?
   NBC reported that American students ranked 14th in a study of math proficiency at an advanced level. In the same broadcast, science reporter Robert Bazell cited research showing a 22 percent increase in ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) since 2003, resulting in a full 10 percent of American kids being treated. What's going on here? The view from this corner is that the two are related. The reason students do poorly in school is that they're bored. And rather than cure the boredom, the system claims it's a medical condition, and pushes another pill. Consider also that the average starting salary for teachers is less than $30,000, and tops out at an average below $50,000. Is it any surprise that the kids are bored?
   In a related matter, the governor of New Jersey wants to put a cap on salaries of school superintendents, some of whom make more than $150,000 in districts with only a few hundred students.
   Solution: If you want better student performance, hire better teachers. To get better teachers, offer higher salaries. Money talks, or somebody walks.

TRUTHINESS -- If you sound like you know what you're talking about, people will assume you do. Politicians have used this principle for centuries, and part of a reporter's job is to give both sides, so the reader can decide who's lying. Note: Maybe they both are. It's not always our job to say. However, political candidates often use half truths and are selective in their choice of facts in their talks, emphasizing some and ignoring others. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank cited the case of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who writes in his memoir that the government is trying to tell Americans "how much salt we can put in our food." That allegation is based on a program dealing with processed food, and how the industry and government are cooperating in an effort to develop standards. The medical evidence is clear that too much salt is hazardous to health, but Gov. Perry's alarums ring out the danger of salt police.
   It's been said that everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts. This is true, but it's critical to remember that of the myriad of facts available, deciding which pieces of information are relevant and important involves selectivity and opinion. In journalism, this is known as news judgment. History is written by the winners.

TAKING SIDES -- One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. This applies to the IRA, the Israeli Irgun, the 18th Century Boston Tea Party, the 19th Century Quantrill's Raiders (Jesse James was a member) as well as to modern day activists.
  
DROPPINGS-- Leaving out a letter or a syllable, even one of only two letters, can change the meaning of what you write. Consider the words mediate and meditate. The loss of a single letter changes the meaning radically. Here's another instance where spellcheck won't help; you must look at each word separately as well as in context.

IMAGINE -- With increasing specialization, doctors know more and more about less and less, so that eventually they will know everything about nothing.

Gleanings

GLEANINGS of an Itinerant Speller -- "Inconvenient" seems to be a problem word for many writers, with letters dropped and entire syllables shifted. The two most common misspellings are "inconvient" and "inconvienent," both of which can be easily avoided by using spellcheck. For most computer users, that's built into the F7 key. Run the spellcheck program, which is simply a lexicon, or list of words, that is stored and to which the text is compared. When a word is flagged, the user then chooses from the suggested alternative spellings. This assumes that the user recognizes the correct word and selects it. Another heroic assumption.
   Spellcheck does no more than a person can do; it examines each word individually and compares it with a previously stored list. Spellcheck cannot, however, deal with context; it cannot determine whether a given word is appropriately used. And until computers can be taught meaning and semantics, it will be up to humans to keep things straight. One way to do that is to consider the elements of a word, especially polysyllabic words of Latin and Greek derivation. For example, the word "convene" can be broken up into the two elements con-vene.The Latin roots are together - come.
   Linguistically, English is classified as a Germanic language because of its grammatical structure, but because of extensive borrowing through the early years when it developed by combining Anglo-Saxon with Norman French as well as by the extensive use of Latin by scholars and clerics, some 80 percent of the English language vocabulary has Classical roots -- Latin and Greek.
  
HERE'S A TRICK -- For those whose first language is Spanish, if you don't know the English word, try the Spanish word and give it an English pronunciation. You'll be surprised at how often it works. It may not be exact, but it will be close.

CAUGHT -- Trapped in a vise is very different from being caught in a vice. The first is a gadget used by carpenters; the second is what gets politicians in moral trouble.

MORE ALLEGATIONS -- There is no such thing as an "alleged victim." The allegation applies to the accused perpetrator. Or as Pug Mahoney said while in the dock, "Your honor, I deny the allegation, and I resent the allegator."

DIZZY MATH -- A promotion for a "Disney on Ice" show in Dublin claimed "100 years of magic" for its tradition. Walt Disney was born in December, 1901, and began his career as an animator in 1920. The publicity mavens are at least ten years off. Some magic.

LAZY WRITING -- English is a  great language for short, punchy, active verbs. Use them whenever you can, and eschew obfuscatory polysyllabic derivations. At the same time, don't get stuck with a few verbs that you use so often that they lose their punch. There are plenty available, so use them and mix 'em up.

Allegations

CYA PHRASING -- Too often, the word "alleged" is used when there is really no need for it. When a victim is bound, gagged, blindfolded, with throat slit and two bullet holes in the back of the head, there is no point in calling it an "alleged murder." The allegation -- equivalent to the word "charge" -- is to be used against the accused perpetrator, when he or she is found and arrested. The event actually occurred. The allegation should be reserved for whodunnit.
   Likewise, there is no point in referring to an "alleged terror plot," when "improvised explosive devices" are found on airplanes. Clearly, there was a plot. The allegation can easily be held until the alleged perpetrators are allegedly arrested and allegedly charged in connection with the alleged terror plot.
   Also noted last week was the change in phrasing by some TV networks to use the word  "bomb," rather than more tame term "improvised explosive device." It is, after all, a bomb for all that it may be improvised or home-made. Add to the list the term "potentially suspicious." Either it is or it ain't.
   We can understand a government or a military calling the opposition insurgents or fighters, rather than the more dignified and, in their view, more honorable term "soldiers." Much depends on whose side you're on. Some 230 years ago, the soldiers in Gen. Washington's Continental Army were called a gang of rabble, or rebels, by the official government in London.
   Much also depends on conduct. There is no honor or respect attached to killing civilian bystanders.

CLICHE CORNER -- "Brutally" slain, murdered, raped, etc. All murders are brutal. Get thee to a thesaurus.

WHO SAID? -- A foreigner landing with a bunch of armed bandits and establishing himself king against the consent of the natives has no divine right to rule, and this is no basis for a system of government, even if some alleged goddess or some other moistened bint threw a sword at him, or if some watery tart launched a scimitar in his general direction.
Answer:
 a/ Thomas Paine
 b/ Monty Python
 c/ Both of the above

GRATUITOUS PHRASING -- In an obit for James Neal, the lawyer who successfully prosecuted Teamster leader James Hoffa as well as Watergate perpretrators John Mitchell, John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman, The Week newsmagazine wrote, "At 5 foot 8 inches, the genial, backslapping Neal carried himself like a big man." This is the Great American Fallacy, that somehow bigger equals better, and that even though the man was "only" 5 foot 8 inches tall, he somehow was able to overcome that by carrying himself "like a big man." At that height, Neal was not particularly tall, but neither was he short. The average height of an American man is 5 foot 9 inches, about the same as in European countries. Moreover, the American average has not changed much since 1776. The average soldier in the Continental Army stood 5 foot 7.
   None of this, however, has affected the prejudice in favor of height. For decades, MBA graduates taller than 5 foot 8 have gotten better paying jobs sooner and with more responsibility than those graduates below that mark. All of which is to say that a man's height as a qualification for employment has as much relevance as a woman's bra size.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -- Never let a machine know you're in a hurry.

QUOTATIONS of the Samurai Rim Man -- I'm the only me I've got. I can only be me; everyone else was taken.

Word Play

NEW WORDS -- When the Samurai Rim Man was young (a rimteen?) , we started with something that was "fun." Then came the word "funner," which was more than what we began with. Now, the term "funnest" is out there. Yes, it follows the rules of grammar, but it will take some time for it to be accepted in the Fogey Forum.

HEAVY BREATHING -- When stores advertise a "pant," are they aiming at the amputee market?

MORE HISPANIC -- An objection came in over the use of the term "Hispanic" to include the people of Portuguese as well as Spanish extraction. Some dictionaries would limit the term to those who speak Spanish. (But we have a friend named Gonzalez who speaks only English, and another friend named O'Brien who speaks no Gaelic.) The objector added, "While the two countries (Spain and Portugal) are adjacent to each other, they are separate.  You may as well call someone from Toronto an American or someone from Alaska a Canadian." The Samurai Rim Man was thinking along the same lines of the use of the term British to refer to both the English and the Scots. Many Scots will accept being called British, but not English. As for a term that would cover both Spain and Portugal, would "Iberian" do? And what about Brazil, where Portuguese is spoken? If the term Hispanic does not apply, and Iberian is obviously inappropriate, would "American" be the term to use?
   Years ago, we encountered the argument from Spanish speakers that people of the USA should not call themselves "Americans" because the people of Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, etc., were also from countries that are part of North America, and thus entitled to call themselves "American." They suggested that USA residents should be referred to as "estado-unidense," or "united-statesians." Pug Mahoney responded that the official name of the nation south of the Rio Grande was "Estados Unidos de Mejico," or "United States of Mexico," so the same term should apply to them, and to other Central and South American nations that use similar terms.

SPORTIN' LIFE -- The TV sportscaster lamented the news that his favorite team "could not extend their one-game winning streak." This is especially odd, since the season had just begun that week.

QUOTE OF THE DAY -- "Hate speech is the biggest danger to national security since McCarthyism."  -- From an episode of "Law and Order," produced in 2009.

Hispanics

From the archives

Editor's Revenge

---

 

Second Series

Volume I, Number 2

August, 2009

BEWARE OF ABSOLUTES – First, biggest, only, and others of that ilk will quickly call out someone to contradict. This month's example comes by way of Sonia Sotomayor cited as the "first Hispanic" on the United States Supreme Court. Not so, says a letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer: Benjamin Cardozo, who served as an associate justice from 1932 to 1938, traced his ancestry to Portugal.

HERD JOURNALISM – From the Irish Times: The death of Farrah Fawcett was a big story until about noon, Los Angeles time, "when the herds of reporters . . . perked up like meerkats and swept en masse" to a bigger story, the death of Michael Jackson. Both stories were important, but the Dublin perspective wondered about the amount of time devoted to each. George Bernard Shaw once said newspapers can't seem to distinguish between an accident involving a bicycle and the end of civilization. There's a difference between news and gossip, said our philospher friend Dinty Ramble.

HYPER-BOWL – The Philadelphia sportscaster enthusiastically noted that the Phillies were "hoping for their second straight win." Wow. That's in the same league as the writer who pointed to a "two-game winning streak."

CLICHE CORNER – "The blaze was sparked ... " Fires "engulf." Avalanches and mudslides are "triggered." Accidents are "horrific." Get thee to a thesaurus!

DANGER: INSTANT CLICHE AHEAD – A  well turned phrase is beautifully effective the first time out, and with judicious usage can stand some repetition. But when writers and broadcasters in their hundreds pick up and use the same phrase daily, it loses value like an inflated dollar. Points go to Kurt Soller of Newsweek (June 22 issue), who did a Google search of the phrase "In these tough economic times," and found that "this year alone, the nation's 50 biggest newspapers have used the phrase more than 2,500 times. That's a five-fold jump over the same period in 2008."

LAX LANGUAGE – The TV ad for Jose Cuervo tequila features Hispanic music and settings as a voice cheers for the beverage, but spells the cheer as "Vive Cuervo!" The Spanish word for "hooray" is "viva," not "vive," which is French.

GROUPERS – From an AP story out of Washington: "The group were unable to obtain information they requested." The info line on a Comcast screening of a BBC America program: "News from around the world are presented." In American usage, "group" takes a singular verb, as in "the group is . . ." Across the pond, collective nouns can take either a singular or a plural verb, depending on whether the members are acting as individuals or collectively. Examples: "The crew is ready to make sail" (group action) or "the crew are going ashore" (a bunch of incipient drunks). As for the word "news," it is singular. I know, you can cite a Colonial-era publication as writing, "The news are not yet come," but most of us no longer live in the 18th Century. Although I'm not sure about some politicians.

POL TALKERS – Prez W was quoted as saying, "I don't believe that persuasion isn't going to work." Mad Dog O'Shaughnessy is still trying to decipher that one. Lawyers are fond of double negatives. Good writers avoid them. And if you really want to make a politician look and sound foolish, transcribe, in full, every word of what he or she says.

COMIC RELIEF – At his swearing-in ceremony, Al Franken promised "no funny business" in the U.S. Senate. That'll be the day.

DUDVILLE – TV people kept referring to Sarah Palin's "bombshell" announcement that she would resign. A shell by itself is empty. It's the stuff inside that is explosive.

SHE KEEPS GOING – An MSNBC commentator referred to Sarah Palin as "the Energizer bunny of American politics."

SAY WHAT? – Is it possible to understand nonsense? If we understand it, is it still nonsense?

WHEN IN DOUBT, REPHRASE – Reporters and editors too often spend as much as half an hour debating the "correct" use of a word or phrase. Keep in mind that if the phrase slows down supposedly professional users of the language, how much harder can it be for the reader? If it's confusing to you, it will be even more so for the reader; and that's not the purpose of good writing. The point was brought up in a discussion of a story that began, "Two colleges graduated 400 students." The editor insisted that colleges don't graduate students; students graduate from colleges. The defense was that one word is more efficient that two, and in this instance the single word "graduate" is more active. Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference (Sixth Edition, 2007) recognizes both "graduated from" and "was graduated from" as standard, and notes that dropping the word "from" is nonstandard. The position here is that students do the work, and therefore they do the graduating. Using the passive form "the student was graduated from the college" can imply that the reverse, active form "the college graduated the student" would also be acceptable. And many folks do, in fact, use that form. But rather than waste time debating usage that confuses the reader, rephrase the sentence. Suggestion: "The college awarded diplomas." Once again, keep in mind that the goal is to communicate, not to puzzle.

---

Editor's Revenge is a free newsletter on the use, misuse and abuse of the English language in America. Logomachist: J.T. Harding.

Gender neutral

IT'S THEIR THERE -- Someday, the language will resolve the issue of gender neutral pronouns when referring to groups or individuals. A  company is made up of people, but is it right to refer to the company as an "it"? The conflict arises when using a singular verb ("the company is ... ") and a plural pronoun ("their") in the same sentence. British usage does not have this problem, since they consider collective nouns as being either singular or plural, depending on how the members are acting. Example: "The crew are going shore, and each of them will get drunk." Conversely, "The crew is ready to make sail, captain." On this side of the pond, however, the use of "their" grates when talking about a corporation and how it is doing business.

MORE MUSING -- When adding another bunch to something, make sure the numbers match. Are the terms "more" and "another" synonymous with "additonal"? Or would it be better to limit the use of "another" to refer to an equal, additional amount? Example: Thirty people died and another ten were wounded. It might be better to say "ten more."

GUIDE FROM THE RIM -- When in doubt, rephrase. If you, as a word professional, have to puzzle over which form is "correct" or easier to comprehend, how much more difficult would it be for the non-professional? The goal is communication, not challenge.

CLICHE CORNER -- If it's "needless to say," don't say it. This phrasing covers it all; just insert town and company: "The armed bandit brandished a revolver, vaulted the counter, scooped up the cash, stuffed it in a bag and made good his escape on foot." Avoid this one as meaningless: "Only time will tell."

SCOOP'S AMBITION -- Ace reporter Scoop Henshaw says he wants to write the Page One second day lede on the end of the world.

FASHION FORUM -- Mad Dog O'Shaughnessy wants to know if the British Royals and Southern Baptist ladies get their hats from the same milliner.

Free speech

Free speech has consequences. During the Age of Reason, the thinkers who influenced the Founders of America wanted the freedom to express their views, both verbally and in print. They were also aware that disagreement with the government or the power structure, or even their friends and colleagues, could have consequences, and they accepted that. And just as they demanded the right to disagree with others, they knew that others would disagree with them. The point was that everyone had this right, and with every right there is responsibility.
   This is the real meaning of Freedom of Speech, as specified in the First Amendment: Accepting that others have opposing views, and are equally free to express them.
    Juan Williams was free to express his fear of airline passengers "wearing Muslim garb," as he did on a Fox network program. But the consequence of doing so was that he lost his job with National Public Radio (NPR), which has a longstanding policy that its on-air commentators and analysts remain neutral -- a policy that Williams repeatedly violated numerous times, and for which he was warned numerous times. We are all free to have and express opinions. But often, a condition of employment is that we adhere to company policies. NPR's policy is that of journalistic neutrality.
   NPR, which is partially funded by the government, has a well-deserved reputation for neutrality in its news coverage. Fox does not have such a reputation. One consequence of Williams' action was that he lost his job at NPR. A second was that he got a new, higher paying contract with Fox.
   As reporter Scoop Henshaw once said to the Samurai Rim Man: "My opinions are not relevant to what I do. I have many opinions, but when it comes to reporting the news, I don't let them interfere."

ARCHIVE QUOTES -- "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." -- George Bernard Shaw.
   "The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government to tolerate speech." -- Justice Anthony Kennedy.
   "I disapprove of what you say, but I  will defend to the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire

FROM THE RIM -- Patriotism is not always the last refuge of a scoundrel; sometimes it's the first. Samuel Johnson said it was the last, but Boswell later noted that Johnson meant the "pretended patriotism" which in many is only "a cloak of self-interest."

Nomen Nation

WHAT'S IN A NAME -- Newsweek referred to the President as having "a Muslim name." Not quite. Many Arabic-speaking people have similar names, but not all Arabs are Muslim, and not all Muslims are Arab. Lebanon is predominantly Arab, but also has a large number of Christians. Many Egyptians are Muslim, but there are also many Christians.  Strictly speaking, Egypt is not an Arab nation. And just  as not all speakers of English are English (the WASP is a minority in America, and always has been), not all speakers of Arabic are ethnically Arab. Not everyone named Patrick is Irish.

POLE POLL -- How many people still refer to the wooden columns along the street as being "telephone poles," even though they carry electric and cable TV lines as well  as telephone wires? Better to use the term "utility pole." We also still use "dial" for telephones, even though that circle of numbers is long gone. And people in New York City still refer to Sixth Avenue, which became Avenue of the Americas decades ago. Some battles may be lost before they start.

WARNING, WILL ROBINSON -- And for candidates and teenagers everywhere. If you don't want the world to know, don't put it into the computer. There is no privacy on the Internet.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -- Fundamentalists are a danger no matter their origin. They view any and all disagreements as heresy, and therefore evil. Galileo was called a heretic, but he was right.

Media mavens

IGNORANCE OR BLISS? -- Reaction was quick and harsh when Delaware candidate Christine O'Donnell challenged her opponent with this: "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" The debate audience laughed. Opponent Chris Coons offered the establishment clause in the First Amendment. O'Donnell: "That's in the First Amendment?"
   Technically, the Tea Party sweetheart is correct; the phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. It was offered years later by Thomas Jefferson, who said the First Amendment builds "a wall of separation between church and state." Specifically, the First Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establshment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." More important, the main body of the Constitution, in Article VI, specifies that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
   At the time, the Founders were setting up protection from a set of English laws called the Test Acts, which required that only members of the government-established (Anglican) church were eligible for public office, or could enter the major universities and study law or medicine. Roman Catholics were heavily penalized for trying, and as for Nonconformists and Jews .... don't even think about it.

PHILLY WHICH -- The Inquirer reported that "The new Dilworth Plaza will be about as wide as Rittenhouse Square, but narrower."

APOCRYPHAL OF WRY -- A survey asked whether laws allowing women's suffrage should be repealed. A majority said yes. ("Don't hit me! I just want to vote!")

QUOTATIONS From the Rim -- Mock not, lest ye be mocked upon. Yeah, but if so, the Samurai Rim Man would be out of a job.

Eschew obfuscation

SAY WHAT? -- "Do you oppose cuttng Social Security benefits to help offset the current losses?" That question was on a survey conducted by a group calling itself the National Retirement Security Task  Force, sponsored by the National Center for Policy Research. At best, it's a loaded question, since no one wants to cut benefits. Secondly, it may be inaccurate, since it implies there are, in fact, "current losses." And third, it's confusing. We had to read it several times to get some semblance of meaning from it, and that's with a background of 30 years in journalism, supplemented by degrees in English, Linquistics, and Economics. The Samurai Rim Man has seen far too many polls and surveys with questions phrased in such a way as to seduce an answer that the survey makers want, to build support for their political positions. Moreover, many of the mailings come from groups previously unheard of, raising the suspicion that they are merely covers for political activists. Especially when they include a pitch for money to support their campaign.

GLEANINGS of an Itinerant Speller -- "A tougher road to hoe." Good luck with that chore, putting a hand-held farm implement to pavement. Farm hands hoe a row, not a road.

FROM THE RIM -- Proofread your own text, but don't be the only one to do it. You'll miss a lot, because you know what you meant, and the eye sees what the brain knows should be there.

BEWARE THE SOUNDALIKES -- When you hear someone say, "Hire the bridge," does the speaker really mean "Higher the bridge"?

Don't ax me

BORRENDER? -- Lots of folks have been turning up on the reality judge shows claiming that "He borrowed me the money and now he won't pay me back." Alternatively, someone will admit, "I borrowed him the money." Keep them straight: You borrow from, and you lend to.

PONDER QUERY -- From across the Big Water comes this: "What do you think of the recent introduction of X in the word "escape," or should I say "excape"?

RESPONSE -- I haven't yet heard "excape," but it sounds like a dialectal carryover from the pronunciation of "aks" for "ask." On this side of the pond, "aks" is standard in the dialect known as Black English. It's a relic of the Middle English form, which was pronounced the same way. I have also heard the "aks" form in some Irish dialects. I suspect this might be where the American Southern blacks picked it up, about the time of the Famine Exodus, which sent so many rural and poor Irish Catholics to America, where they found themselves on a lower social level than the slaves. It seems that the Received Pronunciation of the upper class Brits is the form that changed, and the others retained the older form.

DOG DAZE  -- We're still looking for a generic term for the search and rescue dogs of the K9 Corps. Any suggestions? We have separate forms for sniffer dogs (drugs and explosives), guide dogs (for the blind) helper dogs (for the otherwise handicapped), and many other modifiers. But there is no general term. In a way, it's like the Eskimo and Inuit languages, which have many separate words for different types of snow, but no single word for snow generally. English does have a single word for snow, but uses modifiers to differentiate the various types. Ask any skier. Arabic has dozens of words for different types of camel, but I'm told there is no single word that would include all types. English has a single word to include all types of horses, but also has separate words for different types: e.g. foal, filly, colt, mare, stallion, gelding. Language develops or invents words for concepts that it needs to express. Look at all the new terms coming into English from the computer field. If the culture does not need to express something, there will be no word for it.

Enough already with the Whorfian Hypothesis!

SPELLCHECK -- It's a useful tool, and the Samurai Rim Man encourages all writers to use it. But remember, it's only a tool, and is not perfect. All it does is compare each individual word in your text to a lexicon, or word list, previously supplied. If a word is on the list, spellcheck lets it pass, but it flags any word it does not recognize. The word may be spelled correctly, but in context may be the wrong word.
Examples: to, too, two; carrot, carat, karat, caret; rain, rein, reign.

RANT OF THE WEEK -- Disable grammar check. It's not worth the space it takes up on the hard drive. And don't use autocorrect. The machine doesn't know context, and is likely to change words that should not be changed. Example: Autocorrect might change actor Kelsey Grammer's name to grammar.

GLEANINGS of an Itinerant Speller -- Shepard is a person's name, and should be capitalized. Someone who cares for a flock of sheep is a shepherd.

ODD THOUGHTS -- Is the Pillsbury Dough Boy the son of the Michelin Man?

Spacy Cadet

MEANINGLESS NUMBERS -- Tom Corbett, candidate for Pennsylvania governor, has a TV ad claiming that one out of three Pennsylvania graduates go out of state to find jobs. The suggestion is that this is a bad thing. But if one-third go out of state, that means two-thirds, a solid majority, find jobs in the state. The claim also says nothing of the number of students at Pennsylvania colleges and universities who are originally from other states and go home on graduation.

GOOD LINE -- Thomas Friedman in the New York Times called it "the Tea Kettle movement -- because all it's doing is letting off steam."

CANINE DOGS -- Broadcasters need to remember that while K9 is clear enough in print, to refer to highly trained dogs used in rescue and police work, it's not clear to the ear. The Samurai Rim Man wondered if they say "canine dogs" to differentiate them from "feline dogs," or even "canine cats." The term K9 began with "K9 Corps," the military term for the units that used our four-foot friends in the field.

Beware of Absolutes

WORLD SERIOUS -- Philadelphia baseball fans were thrilled when Ray Halladay pitched a post-season no-hitter. And rightly so. And the local TV people carried on and on that it was only the second such in baseball history. They repeatedly told viewers that it was the first post-season no-hitter in more than 50 years, a wonderful achievement. Indeed so. But if true, who was the other guy who threw the post-season no-hitter?

NEVER ASSUME --- Not all viewers and readers are avid sports fans, who would remember that the other guy was Don Larsen, who pitched a perfect game in the 1956 World Series. This is not to take anything away from Halladay's triumph, but a no-hitter (one man got on base by a walk) in a division playoff game is not the same as pitching a perfect game (no runs, no hits, no errors, no one on base) during  a World Series championship game.

MORAL -- If you write about something that is "only the second" or write "for the first time in  fifty years," you owe it to readers to tell them who or what was first.

SAIL ON -- The New York Times got caught in a similar trap when it reported that Sir Francis Chichester was the first to sail around the world alone. He wasn't; Sir Francis was the first to circumnavigate the globe following the same route as the early clipper ships. The Times correction noted that Joshua Slocum was credited with being the first to sail around the world singlehandedly.

SOUP SONG -- A Campbell's commercial proclaimed that the company's soups have "farm-grown ingredients." True enough. Who would buy food from  a test tube?

GLEANINGS of an Itinerant Speller -- A flier from candidate Rand Paul protests that the U.S. "has lost control of it's borders and it's national security." Sorry, Dr. Paul. The possessive form is "its," as in "his" or "hers." Sticking in an apostrophe indicates something is missing; in this case, the letter i.  The contracted form is from the set "it is."

BORDER ISSUES -- Candidate Paul wants the U.S. to seal its borders to keep out illegal immigrants. Is the country really overrun with Canadians? The Samurai Rim Man warns that they are so much harder to detect, since they look like us, they talk like us, and they even have similar names. They blend. As examples, consider the following names, all of Canadians who have taken jobs away from Amurkins: Michael J. Fox, Robert McNeil, Lorne Greene (star of "Gunsmoke"), John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul Anka, Pamela Anderson, Dan Ackroyd, Mort Sahl, Art Linkletter, Mike Myers, Justin Bieber and -- perhaps the most insidious of all -- William Shatner, captain of the starship Enterprise. And all those hockey players ...

QUOTATIONS FROM THE RIM -- "Rudeness should be a strategy, not a way of life."

Palin Drone

PAINE IN THE BUT  -- In "Common Sense," Thomas Paine wrote of "words of sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind." As in 1776, so today, with candidates ranting with words "full of sound and fury," as Shakespeare put it, designed to appeal to emotions in their efforts to gather votes. Too often, politics in America is not about getting anything done; it's about getting elected.

POLITICAL ADVICE -- "Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel," said the wise PR man to his client. And don't threaten them, either, especially when cameras are rolling. Carl Paladino, candidate for governor in New York, forgot that (if he ever knew it) when he said to a reporter: "I'll take you out."

WHO'S WHO? -- Candidates seem to have given up providing their party affiliation in TV ads, and their messages are phrased so that it's hard to discern any difference in their positions. What's a poor voter to do? Pug Mahoney, the ringside sage, pointed out that "We get the kind of government we deserve, not the kind we need. They're all clones in the demoglopic party."

Years ago, as president of the National Association of Real Estate Editors (NAREE), I wrote: "Too many business executives believe that if you are not an advocate for their position, you are therefore an adversary. Good reporters are neither. We ask the tough questions because they need to be asked." That's true today. Politicians, especially Republican conservatives, don't like dealing with news reporters because they can't control them. Maybe that's why the invisible candidate in Delaware talks only to the party faithful, and even then by prerecorded speeches.

NOTE WELL -- The ads on this blog are provided by the folks at Google. The Samurai Rim Man believes in the separation of editorial and advertising departments. We don't tell them how to sell ads, and they don't tell us how or what to write.

The Riley Syndrome

CLONE TIME -- Remember Chester A. Riley, as played by William Bendix in "The Life of Riley"? (If you do, you are well over 40.)  He was fond of saying, "My head's made up. You can't confuse me with the facts." To the Samurai Rim Man, it sounded very like many politicians and activists today.

FROM THE LEFT -- Pug Mahoney saw a photo of Christine O'Donnell, the Delaware candidate for U.S. Senate, and said, "I didn't realize that the cloning of Sarah Palin had reached such an advanced state."

CREEPING DIGITISM --The use of  "digital" to describe anything is spreading, and "it's time to put a stop to it," comes word from across the pond. "A digital coffee maker does not make coffee from some new variety of bean," says Mad Dog O'Shaughnessy. For automobiles, there is also a digital tire pump. I don't know what a digital tire is, but Brother Mad Dog wonders, "If I pumped my car tire to the required 32 psi with 8s, would it be four times faster than if I used 2s?"

BOOK REVIEW -- Check out a review of a new book on language and usage from across the pond. The view is in the Irish Times. Here's a link: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0925/1224279626802.html

VALID VALUE -- When inflation is taken into account, shouldn't someone's "two cents worth" now be worth a nickel (or not), or even rise to a two-bit comment?

GOOD LINE -- "He was weaned on a pickle." From "The Windsor Knot," by Sharyn Mccrumb.

Smear journalism

SMEAR JOURNALISM -- The Far Right keeps ranting about President Obama's "foreign roots," as if this somehow makes him less American, or even evil. This time, it's found in a Forbes Magazine cover story by Dinesh D'Souza. D'Souza, defending his work in an interview with Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz, insisted that "The idea that Obama has roots that are foreign is not an allegation, it's a statement of fact." Indeed so. Obama does have "roots that are foreign." But so do we all, except for full-blooded members of the Iroquois Federation, the Navajo Nation, or any of the hundreds of other tribes and peoples who were here before the European invasion of 1492. And there is some evidence that even these peoples migrated to the Americas over a land or ice bridge from Siberia. It is also true that Obama senior abandoned the family when his son was two years old, and that young Barack only met his father once, in his pre-teen years. Moreover, to jump from this "fact" of "foreign roots" to the notion that this dominates your thinking remains at best a "psychological theory," which D'Souza himself admits. At worst, it is the "bad seed" notion, which in turn leads to the idea that we are not responsible for our own actions.
We all have "foreign roots." But to say that those who honor and maintain these cultural traditions are any less American because they do so is itself un-American. Diversity, and the acceptance and celebration of diversity, is what makes America great.
　
GLEANINGS of an Itinerant Speller --"Thanks for the apprisal." Some folks "can't conceive a number that high, let a loan pay it." This reminded Mad Dog O'Shaughnessy of the old joke about two men adrift after their boat went down, and one had to help his non-swimmer friend.
One: "Do you think now can you float alone?"
Two: "At a time like this, you want to talk business?"

BEWARE THE SOUNDALIKES -- "Free reign" has nothing to do with monarchs. When controlling a horse, you "rein him in" and when you let him roam, you give him "free rein."

Far Out Right

   When the Far Right, in its self-righteous, self-wisdom as the self-appointed guardians of America, solicits money for its campaigns, they should at least get their facts straight and use the English language appropriately.

   Case in point: A group that calls itself the Council of Seniors wants contributions to support Rep. Ron Paul in a campaign to stop Felipe Calderon, president of Mexico, from "stealing" Social Security funds as part of a plot to "give it away to his Illegal Aliens in Mexico." (Quotes are from a mass-mailing pitch letter we received.)

   In the pitch letter, the executive director of the Council of Seniors warns that "America is being overrun by illegal aliens looking for a handout," and that politicians in Washington "are willing to give it to them," through a "backroom deal." (Note: If it's a "backroom deal," how do they know about it?)

   The pitch letter also warns that Calderon "has set his sites" (sic) on the Social Security Trust Fund. And in a petition enclosed with the pitch, after the "Insomuch (sic) as" and the "whereas," the concluding paragraph begins, "And henceforth, I charge Congress  ..."

   The appropriate wording should be "sights," "Inasmuch," and "therefore."

   Conveniently ignored in all the dire warnings is the reality that while those working in the U.S. illegally do pay into the Social Security system, they often do not try to collect. Making themselves known to the government would quickly lead to their expulsion.

   Accusing someone of theft -- even the head of state of another nation -- is a serious charge, and unless provably true, is a libel. Moreover, labeling as "criminals" all those who come to America looking for a better life is an equally serious charge.

Out of Town Words

   IN THE BEGINNING -- A good guideline for writing is to remember the C formula: Clear, concise and correct equals easy reading. One good way to achieve that is to avoid what H. L. Mencken called "out of town words." You may have the vocabulary of William F. Buckley Jr., but in the words of the Irish boxing sage Pug Mahoney, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." The New York Times regularly falls victim to the "word du jour" virus, which leads to one two-dollar word appearing in several pieces on the same day. Last week, it was the word "inchoate." The Samurai Rim Man couldn't sniff out the meaning from the context, and had to look it up. (It's Latin for something in its early stages, a beginning.) So if professional users of the language have to pause to look it up, how much more of a problem will it be for the average reader? The goal is to communicate, not to overwhelm with two-dollar words.
   LOST WORDS SOCIETY -- Add "modem" to the list of words that are still around but have lost their original meaning. It's a coined word from the early days of the Internet, when a separate device was needed to modulate and demodulate the digital signal from the computer into the analog system in the telephone line. But since most communications systems are all digital now, maybe we need a new word for the connector gadget. Any suggestions? More likely we'll still use it, much as we still "dial" phone numbers, even though the rotary telephone is long gone.
   GIMMICKRY, BY CRACKY -- Computerized word processing enables us to use a wide variety of type sizes, faces, and other typographical gimmickry in an often vain effort to spice up the page. But as with multiple punctuation, such as !!!! to REALLY emphasize something IMPORTANT!!!, if you don't have anything to say, no amount of gimmickry will help. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
   GLEANINGS of an Itinerant Speller -- The word is "straitjacket," not "straightjacket." It refers to a garment with super-long sleeves, tied behind a person's back, preventing him from using his arms. The arms are thereby not "straight," but put in such "straits" as to disable the patient. Said garment was used in mental institutions years ago. Whether it's still used today ...
   IN MEMORIAM -- James J. Kilpatrick (1920-2010) and Edwin Newman (1919-2010), master advocates of clear and concise language, who encouraged the Samurai Rim Man in the early years of Editor's Revenge. Their books on language should be on every writer's reading list, along with Strunk & White, a dictionary and a thesaurus.

Cookie Monster Grammar

   COOKIE KOOKS -- It's time to put an end to the widespread use of objective pronouns (me and him) as the subject of sentences (I and he). And while we're at it, go back to the courtesy of putting the other person first. Example: "Me and him went to the store." It's  Cookie Monster Grammar, and even the denizens of Sesame Street know the difference. Unfortunately, when they enter teenagerhood, they revert. No cookies for the delinquents.
   HYPHEN HAPPY -- It's time for a refresher course in the difference between multiple adjectives and compount modifiers. A noun can have an infinite number of adjectives, none of which need hyphens. Example: The phrase "large round green apple" has three words describing the nature of a certain fruit. Hyphens are only needed when there may be some doubt as to whether the first modifier applies to the second modifier or to the main noun. Example: First-born son. Failure to follow these guidelines results in a crop of hyphens that are distracting to the eye of the reader, and thereby interfere with the act of reading. The Samurai Rim Man found this fault in a paper by the American Enterprise Institute, which perpetrated the offense several times, as in: public-debt-to-GDP ratio, public-debt limits, public-debt levels, housing-market bubbles. There is no doubt that the several adjectives all modify the main noun, and not each other. Therefore, hyphens are not needed.
   PARALLEL  PROBLEM -- The Philly news anchor reported that "98 percent of women washed their hands before leaving public restrooms, but one out of three men did not." An hour later, the network's Brian Williams said, "98 percent of women washed their hands ... but for men that number dropped to 77 percent." The local reporter not only mixed a percentage figure with a ratio, forcing the viewer-listerner to do an unnecessary mental calculation, but he was also wrong. The one out of three who did not translates to 66 percent who did, not 77 percent.

Lost Word Society

   FORGOTTEN, BUT NOT GONE --  Some words outlive their usefulness and disappear. Other words and phrases live on, even though their early meanings are forgotten; they become idoms. Examples of "lost words" would include "flashcube" (and a personal favorite, its German equivalent, "blitzblock.") And does anyone still use "bumbershoot," or "parasol"? Oddly, the language uses "umbrella" for a device to protect from rain, even though its root is the Latin for "shade." Meanwhile, let's bring back "running board" and "wing window" for our cars.
   JOBLESS LUDDITES -- Technology is great, but once bowling alleys got automatic pinsetters, the machines put a lot of teenagers out of work, and the term "pin boy" disappeared. And Mr. Lud lost an opportunity.
   ROLLOUT -- In early election campaigns, villagers would construct a massive ball and plaster it with signs endorsing their favorite candidate, then gather together to push the thing to the next village, in the hope that they, in turn, would "keep the ball rolling."

wolf chapter 1 contnued

“Where have you been?” the old man said. “I’ve been waiting for your report.”

            “Sorry, Boss, I was delayed,” Wolf said.

            On the way to the Island, he and the man-pup had stopped by a stream to rest, and Wolf drank from the stream. He wasn’t really thirsty, but man-pup urged him to drink anyway, telling him it was important that he take at least a small drink from this particular stream.

            “It’s the Boundary,” man-pup had said. “You may want to sleep for a while after you drink, but don’t worry. I’ll be here. You’re home now.”

The Stream of Consciousness,

or the River of Remembrance.

            As soon as his muzzle touched the cold stream, the shock of memory returning sent him stumbling into the middle of the stream. It was too much. Too many memories too quickly. He needed sleep. And sleep he did, for a full day, after shaking off the water and finding a grassy place in the sun.

            Now it was time for a full report to the Boss, in the forest grove near the cave where the Boss lived.

            The Boss was not surprised. He knew Wolf and the man-pup were coming. Now it was time to rebuild, and hope that Man had learned something ... this time. "He never has before," the Boss muttered.  "Why should this time be different? Still, we have to try."

# # #

            "Thank you, Wolf. You did well. Now it's time to go back."

            "But Boss, I just got here," Wolf howled.

            "Not to worry, my friend, this time you won't be alone, and you won't have to travel as far. I want you to stay in the Woodlands," the Boss said.

            "You mean I'll have a partner this time?"

            "Not just a partner," the Boss said. "A mate, maybe." He signaled to the edge of the clearing, and another wolf trotted toward them. Wolf's hackles started to rise, but a sharp look from the Boss meant Wolf could relax.

            "This is Betty," the Boss said. "She'll be your partner on your next assignment. And, if she agrees, it might be more than a partnership."

            With tails wagging cautiously, Wolf and Betty met nose to nose, the nose to flank, and then nose to tail. Hackles started to rise again, to the danger level, but the Boss intervened.

            "Betty, I expect he'll be in charge, but only in the sense of being leader, and only if you agree he deserves it." The she-wolf turned her head and raised a paw to indicate she accepted the Boss’s terms. But she was not about to lie down and roll over, exposing her belly to show her complete submission. He would have to earn that show of respect. And as for turning around and lifting her tail for him to ...  Well, it wasn’t the season, anyway. When the time came, she would consider her options.

            "So, what's the new job, Boss?"

            This from Betty, and brought a low rumble from Wolf, a reminder that he was to be in charge. But Betty would have none of it. A quick snarl and snap was enough to remind him that they were to be partners.

           

            "That's enough, you two," said the Boss. "Wolf, you're to be leader, but only because you've been there before. And that does not mean that you're totally in charge. This is to be Betty's first journey, so there's to be no fighting. You have already noticed, I'm sure, that Betty hasn't developed her own scent yet, because she has not been off the Island and into the Landworld. And you seem to have forgotten how to turn yours off after you cross the Boundary Stream. Right now, you stink. Go clean up and take the rest of the day off to rest. You leave tomorrow."

            "But Boss, what will we be looking for when we go back? I saw no sign of any Two-Foots for weeks on my way in," Wolf said.

            "They're out there somewhere," the Boss said. "Your job is to find them, and be friendly to them. They're going to need your help."

            "Be friendly to Two-Foots?" Wolf yelped in surprise. "But they hate us. You told me yourself that they're responsible for chasing us out of the Woodlands."

            His lip curled in anger as he snapped, "Why don't I just offer to eat one of their fire-sticks, and make it easy for them. You really want me to go looking for them?"
            "Calm down," the Boss said. "They're not all like that. Remember I told you long ago that there are many kinds of Two-Foots. You are cousin to Coyote as well to Dog, and they are very different. And don't forget that cats are Four-Foots, too."

            This stopped Wolf for a moment. He didn't know cats very well, certainly not the kind that lived with the Two-Foots. He had seen Cougar, of course, and respected his hunting ability. He had even helped himself to leftovers from Cougar's dinner. But socializing with the kind of cats that lived with Man was something he had never considered.

            "You should consider working together with Cougar," the Boss said. "He's coming back to the Woodlands also. And I'm sending word ahead to all the Four-Foots and Wingers in the Woodlands that you're on the way."

            "Who'd you send, Swan?" Wolf said. This brought a snorfle of amusement from Betty, satisfying Wolf's plan to impress the she-wolf with his wit.

            But he was mistaken. "Don't be sarcastic," she snapped. "You know Swan doesn't talk."

            "Actually, I sent Hawk," the Boss said, ignoring her.  "I sent him years ago, and he's been watching the Machine Trails ever since. I even told him not to hide, to let himself be seen, on the chance that the Two-Foots would take his presence as a signal to be more careful."

            "Be more careful about what?" Betty asked.

            "About what they're doing to where they live," the Boss said. "They have not learned that you can't use your den for a dump. The Four-Foots know that, and some of the Two-Foots know that, but most of the Two-Foots have forgotten, and won't listen to the few who do know."

            "You mean there are still some Two-Foots living in the Woodlands? How come I didn't see any on my way here? Wolf said.

            "They're still in their shelters," the Boss said, "waiting for a signal that it's safe to come out."

            Wolf was puzzled. "Why do they need a signal? Bear goes into a shelter every year, and always knows when to come out. She doesn't need someone else to tell her. Even though she's mostly asleep, she still knows by the light of the days when it's time."

            The Boss nodded. “That’s because Bear, like the other Four-Foots, hasn’t forgotten that Light and Time are related. The Two-Foots, especially those who came to the Woodlands from across the Big Water, began to think their machines were more important than anything. You’ve seen their Machine Trails, Wolf. Roads, they called them. They couldn’t go anywhere without their machines, and they had to make those trails so they could use their machines to go anyplace. They didn’t walk or run; they had to take their machines. They even had machines to tell them when to wake up, and when to go to sleep. Clocks, they called them. Such foolishness!”

            “But I’m still puzzled,” Wolf said. “What kind of signal can they get now, if all the machines are gone? And who’s going to give them a signal?”

            “You are,” the Boss said.

            “Me? How?” Wolf yelped. “Where are the Two-Foots? How will I find them? What will I tell them? How will they listen? They don’t understand Wolf-speak, and they’re afraid of us to begin with.” Wolf growled out the questions like he was warning a coyote away from a fresh dinner.

            “Easy, easy,” the Boss said, laughing. “You always were full of questions. And that’s why I picked you for this job.”

            “You’ll find some Two-Foots in caves in the mountains,” the Boss said. “Some will still be in their dens, but these will be far away from the Machine Trails. Look for the ones in the mountains first; they’ll be the easiest to contact and talk to. Then go near the old dens, but don’t get too close too soon. Let them know you’re coming, and that you mean them no harm. Remember, Two-Foots are pack creatures, just as wolves are. Think of them as wolves who forgot how to work together as a pack, and how much joy there is in singing. Your most important job, and the hardest one, is to teach them how to be wolves again, how important it is to know you are part of the Earth, that you don’t own it. The Two-Foots came to believe they owned the world, and could do whatever they want with it and to it. Mother Earth tolerated that for a long time, as all mothers do, but eventually she smacked them down.”

            Betty spoke for the first time. “What happed to them? Did Earth Mother send them away?”

            Wolf growled at what he thought was a silly questions. “Send them away? Where? There were so many of them there was no place to send them.”

            “Don’t snap at me,” Betty warned. “I’ve never been to the Woodlands, and I’ve never seen any Two-Foots besides the Boss and the Sentinel, so you can’t expect me to know much about the Woodland Two-Foots.”

            “Who’s the Sentinel?” Wolf interrupted.

            “See, you’re not so smart after all, are you?” Betty snarled. “The Sentinel is right there next to you. He’s the Two-Foot who brought you here after you got lost.”
            “I wasn’t lost,” Wolf snapped. “I was exploring new territory.”

            “Yeah, right,” Betty said. “And I suppose you ...”

            “That’s enough, both of you,” the Boss ordered. “You’re to work together on this job, not fight.”

            “But you said I’m in charge,” Wolf objected.

            “Only because you’ve been to the Woodlands before,” the Boss reminded him, “and not because you have any better tracking or hunting skills or anything else. Betty has talents and skills that you don’t have and don’t even know about, so don’t start thinking too highly of yourself or I’ll smack you down. And the same goes for you, Betty, so wipe that smirk off your muzzle.”

            The two wolves whimpered, turned their heads and raised a paw to show their submission to the Boss.

            “All right them. No more quarreling while you’re on the Island. Go find some dinner and talk over some routes and strategies. You leave tomorrow.”

end of chapter 1

Educate, motivate

 When a student performs well, he or she is praised for diligence and/or motivation. But when a student performs poorly, blame is put on teachers or parents. Why? If a student is responsible for good performance, why not also be held responsible for poor performance?
   Motivation cannot be instilled from outside; it has to come from within. Like morale, motivation can be encouraged or destroyed by others, but it cannot be created except by the individuals directly affected.
  

Education

   The softball coach at the University of Florida is paid a salary of $250,000 yearly (NY Times 3 Sept 10). On "The View" that same  morning, rapper and actor 50 Cent noted that, "You don't need a master's (degree) to be a drug dealer."
   Compare the coach's salary with others: Starting pay for teachers is less than $40,000 nationwide, ranging from a low of $25,000 in Wisconsin to a high of $39,000 in Connecticut, according to the website teacherportal.com. And the softball coach makes more than even those who sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. The chief justice is paid a bit over over $212,000 and the associate justices $203,000 -- levels that have not changed in years.
   Where are the priorities?
   50 Cent makes a good point. Why go to school and cope with dull, boring, incompetent teachers when the dropout down the street drives a new Lexus? Why pursue a degree -- at outrageous tuition levels -- for a job that pays so little? Granted, 50 Cent has come a long way from his own days as a dealer, and is now urging young people to stay in school and enter the legal workforce. But that can be a hard sell when young people see little or no opportunity.
   Critics claim the American education system is in a shambles, and they blame teachers and their unions, as well as parents who are not "involved" enough with their children.
   Consider: The reason for labor unions is to improve pay and working conditions. (If pay and working conditions were good a hundred years ago, there would not have been the need for unions.) The reason for tenure is to protect teachers from politicians who replace good teachers with their relatives and cronies, who may or may not be competent. And yes, parents should be involved with their children; but as parents, not as teachers.
   The solution is in applying Economics 101, the Law of Supply and Demand. The reason the supply of good teachers is not meeting the demand is one of salary. Higher salaries will attract better teachers.  At one time, the primary career paths open to bright, talented women were in teaching, nursing or as airline attendants. The Women's Lib movement rightly changed that, with the result that the bright and talented women who might have gone into teaching went to the higher-paying jobs in corporations and other fields.
   So how to attract better teachers -- both women and men -- back to teaching? Better salaries and working conditions.
   And not as softball coaches.
   Or drug dealers.

Wolf story more chapter 1

The Wolf Who Came Back
Chapter 1 continued


Sometimes Wolf wondered where Man went, and why he went away, abandoning all the man-dens. Wolf tried not to think about such things, because they were not needed as survival or hunting skills. But ever since he was a pup, he had wondered about the why of things. He had learned early on not to include the why question in the nightly howls of his pack. When he was a pup, his mother and father and the rest of the pack were more indulgent, letting him throw in a why howl occasionally, especially when the moon was full. But that indulgence wore thin, and by the time he was full grown, the pack got more annoyed with his curiosity, calling it dangerous. Over time, he lost standing in the pack hierarchy until he became Omega wolf, the last one down. After that, he left the pack, to be on his own. But he didn't feel lonely, because even when he was still with the pack, he was alone.


Stop. Wait. What was that? A new sound. Hackles up.

"Wolf! Where are you?"

Warning. Danger. It was a Man-sound. But there was no smell. How can that be? Wind never lied; even when Wind was still, smell drifted to his nose, carrying messages or warnings.

Ears up. Ears down. Tail in. Tail up, a warning to others. One paw up, ready to move.

Where was the sound coming from? Couldn't tell. Ears forward. Ears back. Still no direction. Nose up, twitching, testing, checking. Nothing. Eyes alert, head turning slowly. Still no clue. Body turns slowly, all systems in high detection mode to check all directions.

"Wolf! Where are you? I need your help."

The man-voice again. But this time he knew where it was coming from. It was inside his head.

He had heard that voice before, but always before it was while he was asleep. It was like a dream, like the memories of successful hunts, or puppy playtime. He had never been afraid of the voice. It was the voice of a friend; an odd thing, considering it was a man-voice. It was not like the voices of the men who came with fire-sticks, the things that could sting like an angry bee even before a creature could hear the boom. This voice for a long time was that of a man-pup. But now it was different. The man-pup voice was always in his dream, when he played with the man-pup, and there was friendship and fun. Now the voice was that of a creature coming to maturity -- not quite full grown, but nearly there.

Why was the man-pup calling? Why now, in full day, and not in the dreamtime?

There was the why question again. It had always been trouble for him, yet he couldn't resist it. Now it was time for caution.

There he is. The man-pup. On the other side of the stream. Wolf raised his muzzle and sniffed the air, asking Wind to confirm that it was the man-pup, and not a dream or an illusion. Wind never lied. But this time, Wind told him nothing. His ears told him nothing. Only his eyes and the voice inside his head told him the man-pup was there. Wolf knew it was the man-pup of his early dreams, even though the creature he saw was full grown. What's more, the man-pup was looking straight at him, and did not seem afraid or angry. Always in the past, when any man saw Wolf, the man ran away or raised his fire-stick, pointing it at Wolf. Wolf always ran away from the fire-stick.

But this time, the man-pup raised his paw and lowered his eyes, acknowledging that Wolf was the better creature. The man-pup started walking toward Wolf, all the while keeping his eyes down.

This was strange. Wolf had never known a man to admit a wolf as an equal, much less a superior creature. Yet this man-pup was submissive. Why? There's that question again. What did this creature want?

"Wolf, my friend, it's good to see you again. I need your help."

Friend? See me again? Asking for help? What's he talking about? And why can't I snarl at him?

"What are you talking about?" my voice said.

I had forgotten I had a voice. I didn't know I had a voice. Certainly not a man-voice. Did the man-pup have a wolf-voice? He must, otherwise how could I understand him? Men don't send signals with their ears, and they don't have tails. They move their front paws a lot, because they're always standing up. But their paw-waving doesn't mean anything. It's like they're trying to bury something in the wind. What fools they are; everybody knows you can't bury something in the air.

The man-pup spoke again. Not in a growl, or a bark or a whimper, but I heard him anyway. And his mouth was closed, and his lips didn't move. He didn't show his teeth or his tongue, or lower his eyes, or move his ears or his tail, or anything else. Yet I understood him.

"You've been gone a long time," man-pup said. "The Boss was beginning to wonder, since you were out of range so long."

The Boss? Out of range? This man-pup is really confused. I've never been here. I don't know any Boss or pack leader in this territory. The only one I ever met was the pack leader who threw me out, forcing me to wander the Sun-road. But I don't know why I came so far. There were plenty of places that looked good for hunting and sleeping, and I could have stayed, maybe even found a mate. Why did I wander so far? There's that why question again.

"Come on, Wolf, I'll show you the way to the Island. You look lost. The Boss said it might be like this when you came back. That was pretty strong stuff he put on you for the trip. I guess it's finally working off. Here's the path. Come on, it's not far."

The man-pup turned and walked away. Wolf followed as the thought of food came. There might be an easy meal along the way. Why am I doing this? What am I, a dog, following this man-pup instead of making a meal of him? Damn that why question.

(more)