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.