"The Old Editor" is in

The Old Editor Says, which was first listed on Amazon.com over the weekend, is now in stock.




Someone wondered whether some samples might be posted, since Amazon.com doesn't allow a glimpse into the book. 

Here's a teaser:

The Old Editor says:

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." 10-word lead. What've you got that needs more?

The creation of the universe in Genesis 1:1 does not need six paragraphs of throat-clearing before getting to the point, or a little anecdote to prime the pump. Genesis, like the Lord, gets down to the business immediately, and you, if you would like to have the reader's attention for a little while, will do the same. 


And, since there are personal and professional dimensions of editing that go beyond the texts, here's another teaser:

The Old Editor says:

Don’t scorch the popcorn, and never heat up fish in the office microwave.

If you edit solo at home, working in your pajamas, having gin for breakfast, and listening to that music you’d be embarrassed if people knew you like, that’s your business. But if you work in company, have the decency to respect the sensibilities of your colleagues. Common courtesy should be observed, along with basic table manners and the conventions of personal hygiene. 

See what The Old Editor Says

I have produced a little book of sixty-odd pages of maxims from the paragraph game, with brief commentaries. Some are traditional, some from my mentors, some my own. The publisher is Apprentice House, the student-run publishing operation at Loyola University Maryland.

If you did not have the good fortune as a beginner to work with a crusty old editor who would set you straight on the elements of writing and editing, then you can acquire a simulacrum from Amazon.com for twelve bucks.*



And, as the jacket copy advises, if you aspire to be a crusty old editor, this is the handbook.

If you are attending the national conference of the American Copy Editors Society in St. Louis this spring, and you bring along your copy of The Old Editor Says, I will happily autograph it for you. 

I am deeply grateful to Anthony Medina, my former student, who was the Apprentice House  production editor for the book. I also owe thanks to Samantha Vigliotti, another former student, who read the manuscript and made several valuable corrections; and to Kevin Atticks of the Loyola faculty, who oversaw the project.


*Amazon marks it temporarily out of stock. (And gets the title wrong, too.) The text went to the printer at the end of last week. As the printer disgorges copies, they will be available on Amazon, no doubt soon. For now, you can place an order to be filled as the books become available.

A technical question, and an appeal for help

Perhaps some of you who are knowledgeable can help me with an irritating problem.

I work on an iMac at home, and nearly every day I get shut out of Facebook or Twitter on Firefox or Safari. Firefox delivers a "This Connection is Untrusted" warning that says that Twitter has an untrusted security certificate, and Safari renders a similar security certificate error.

This happens when I leave either Facebook or Twitter logged on for an extended time, and the only remedy that I have figured out is to clear the history and restart the computer.

I never have this problem with the Dell on my desk at work, so I assume that the problem has something to do with the iMac rather than with Facebook or Twitter.

Is there something about the iMac's security settings that needs adjustment? I welcome suggestions from Apple fanciers.

Just call me "Mr. President"

Went to see Hyde Park on Hudson today, mainly interested in seeing Bill Murray's portrayal of Franklin Roosevelt, since I had played Roosevelt in the Memorial Players' production of Annie in the spring of 2010.

Afterward I asked Kathleen which portrayal of FDR she found more compelling, Murray's or mine.

Her verdict: Too close to call.

God and the party platform

There was a kerfuffle yesterday over the omission of the word God from the Democratic platform. President Obama stepped in to get it restored, and the manufactured controversy seems to have faded.

Mind you, the platform was not disrespectful of believers in the first place. It included this passage:

Faith has always been a central part of the American story, and it has been a driving force of progress and justice throughout our history. We know that our nation, our communities, and our lives are made vastly stronger and richer by faith and the countless acts of justice and mercy it inspires. Faith- based organizations will always be critical allies in meeting the challenges that face our nation and our world – from domestic and global poverty, to climate change and human trafficking. People of faith and religious organizations do amazing work in communities across this country and the world, and we believe in lifting up and valuing that good work, and finding ways to support it where possible. We believe in constitutionally sound, evidence-based partnerships with faith-based and other non-profit organizations to serve those in need and advance our shared interests. There is no conflict between supporting faith-based institutions and respecting our Constitution, and a full commitment to both principles is essential for the continued flourishing of both faith and country.

I am not sure that I'm keen on having God in a party platform anyhow. The Constitution gets along fairly well without any mention of the deity, the Founders having wanted to give us a secular republic in which the populace would have freedom to practice religion without imposing it on one another. Beyond that, I have my doubts that God is a Republican or a Democrat. Probably registered independent, if anything. 

And really, do you want our political parties to have anything to do with the Almighty?  They can't even contrive to pass a manageable budget, and they should take responsibility for theology as well? 

God seems to putter along quite well without the assistance of a political party, so perhaps both Republicans and Democrats would do well to keep their hands off and give some attention to establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defence, and promoting the general welfare. That should be enough to occupy them. 

Not a gut course

In about half an hour I will walk into a classroom at Loyola and tell a group of students what they are in for in CM 361 Copy Editing. For those of you who have tuned in since last year's opening harangue, I repeat it here. 

This is not a gut course. Writing is difficult. It does not come to us as naturally as speech, and we have to spend years learning it. Editing is even harder. We can write intuitively, by ear, but we have to edit analytically.

But before we can even get to the analytical aspect, we will have to work on grammar and usage, because if you are like most of the six hundred students who have preceded you in this class, you will be shaky on the fundamentals. You will have to learn some things that you ought to have been taught, and you will have to unlearn some things that you ought not to have been taught.

I must also caution you from the outset that this course is appallingly dull. A student from a previous term complained in the course evaluation that “he just did the same thing over and over day after day.” So will you. Editing must be done word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and we will go over texts in class, word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. No one will hear you if you scream.

I’m going to turn my back for a minute so that anyone who wants to bolt can escape.

Now, if you are willing to stay—and work—I can show you how it is done. I have been a working editor for more than thirty years. I will explain basics of grammar so that you can shore up the spots where you are shaky. I will advise you about English usage and point to the places where you need to know that it is shifting. I will show you how to identify the flaws in a text so that you can pick it up out of the gutter, brush it off, clean it up, shave it, and make it respectable.

You are going to learn the craftsman’s satisfaction of picking up a piece of prose and knowing when you are finished with it that you have made it better—more accurate, more precise, clearer, more effective.

Let me say it again. You will have to work. You will have to be in class, because editing is a craft. One learns it by performing it, not from reading a textbook, and we will be performing serious editing in class.

I can’t make you into a full-fledged editor in one semester—or even two, and who in the name of God would want to be in a classroom with me for two semesters? But if you put in the time and work with me, you will by semester’s end be a better writer because you will be a sharper editor of your own work. And even if your editing skills are limited, you will be miles ahead of your fellow students. In the valley of the blind, they say, the one-eyed man is king.

So put in the time. My function here is to help you—you know, I already know how to do this; I don’t need to do this for me. So I will answer your questions and steer you to reliable references. I can work with you individually during office hours and by appointment. One previous semester, when we lost two weeks of class to winter storms, I came in on Sunday afternoons to be available to answer questions and go over points of editing. I can do that again.

One more thing. You may not care for my manner or my sense of humor. Not every student has. But one of the reasons you are in a university is to experience different personality types, different senses of humor, different approaches to the world. I am not the only jackass you will ever have to cope with in the adult working world, and one thing you can do this semester is to sharpen your coping skills.

Now, shall we get down to the particulars?

And still counting

On this date on 1986 I arrived at Calvert Street to start work on the copy desk at The Baltimore Sun. That makes it, accounting for the [cough] hiatus [cough], twenty-five of the past twenty-six years.  

Never was a quarter-century better spent. 

Five things you can do to improve Facebook

1. Those gorgeous pictures of food porn in magazines? Trick lighting and varnish. That lovely dish you're having for dinner? Like Joan Rivers without makeup. Just eat it. 

2. Awww, your baby is just too cute for words. No more than one photo a month, please. 

3. Cute pictures of cats. See Item 2. 

4. If you're still in Farmville, do what your ancestors have done: Sell the farm and move to town. 

5. Photos of signage with misapplied apostrophes. Even nerds deserve a richer life than this. 

Pipe down 

Wednesday was the sixtieth anniversary of the premiere of John Cage's 4'33", a work in which the performer is instructed not to play the instrument for four minutes and thirty-three seconds.

I thought of it last night while driving home from the paragraph factory, listening to the final movement of Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" quartet on the radio. When it ended, I switched the radio off rather than allow some other sound to contaminate it.

When I was a graduate student at Syracuse, the chamber music series brought in some remarkable performers, and I remember an evening when a quartet (embarrassed to admit that I no longer remember that it was the Guarneri or the Juilliard) was playing the Schubert. In the middle of the slow movement, the cellist broke a string.

The cellist nodded apologetically, walked off stage, replaced the string, returned, and tuned very briefly. The quartet took up where it had left off. Through the entire interval, the audience did not make a sound. Not a cough, not a murmur. The auditorium at Crouse College was entirely still.

I wonder how an audience would react to Cage's 4'33" today, when people appear to be constitutionally unable to stop talking.

They carry on highly audible cellphone conversations in all manner of public and private places, intruding on your personal audiosphere. Telephone conversations used to be private. You went into a booth, as into a confessional.  You would feel humiliated to know that everyone around could hear your personal affairs.

My experience at a number of Episcopal churches in recent years has been that, though the nave is not quite as noisy just before the service as a hotel lobby when Shriners are in town, there is very little reverent or reflective silence. The loud talking continues even through the prelude, as if it were lounge music. (Perhaps the organist should put a tip jar on the console.) 

Going to movies might be getting a little better, as the young abandon speech for texting.

Mind you, I would not prefer to work as the lexicographers at Merriam-Webster do, in Trappist silence. I've grown used to the newsroom, with the sports department following at least one game on the television and a reporter three desks away conducting a telephone interview in a voice that must be audible in Pittsburgh.

But perhaps you, like I, wish sometimes that people would just shut up. Let me bring this to a close, to set an example.

Lobbying the dictionary

Note to readers: There’s a bug in my blogging software at The Sun (surprise!), so I will be posting here at the personal site until the boffins figure out the problem.

The morning email brings a release from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which I reproduce in full:

PETA has submitted a list of five animal-friendly terms to dictionary publisher Collins, after learning that the company is collecting new words to be added to its upcoming editions. The terms include "sea kitten," a name for fish that will elicit more empathy for these persecuted aquatic animals; "Trollsen," a name befitting each of the fashion-backward Olsen twins for including fur and other animal skins in their collections; "veganise," the act of replacing meat, eggs, and dairy products with kinder and healthier foods and ingredients; "veggie dog," meat-free franks that have skyrocketed in popularity; and "elefriend," someone who supports elephants by boycotting circuses that use or display these animals.

"Dictionaries are updated to reflect the times, and animal-friendly terms reflect one of the fastest-growing social movements of our time: animal rights," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "Word choices have a lot to do with shaping attitudes, so it's time that animals receive the respect that they deserve in our everyday language."

I don’t expect them to have much success, or wish them any, partly because sea kitten for fish is risible, and partly because lexicographers do not take well to lobbying.

PETA also exaggerates the influence of dictionaries.

It is true that Samuel Johnson’s great dictionary, because it was the first comprehensive one in English, had enormous prestige and a lingering conservative influence. It is true that Noah Webster’s great work, because it was the first comprehensive dictionary of American English, had great influence. It was he who got us to drop the k from critick and the u from honour. Dictionaries since, not so much.

Most schemes to reform the maddening and chaotic spelling of English have failed, despite the prestige and power of George Bernard Shaw, Col. Robert Rutherford McCormick, and other would-be reformers.  

Similarly, the campaigns by numerous cranks to supply English with an epicene pronoun (rather than accepting singular they as the simplest and most reasonable remedy) have come to nothing. And no mention of cranks should go by without a salute to the recently departed Queen’s English Society and its nutty efforts to establish an Academy of English.

Failure is their portion, and deservedly so. English is the most democratic thing we have. We collectively shape it, and each of us has onevote. It goes where it will, or rather where we will, and no Authority can dictate to us how to speak and write. Lexicographers follow us around and diligently make notes about what we’re doing.

I admire PETA’s principled vegetarianism. And if they make me feel guilty about my fondness for brisket and bacon, that is surely salutary. But they are wasting their energy lobbying lexicographers. Language shapes itself from the bottom up, not the top down.