After further consideration on this topic (and a "heart" on the above comment), I am both troubled and fascinated by Jack's adherence to very high standards in some cases (language, sartorial needs, racing etiquette, etc.) while seemingly reveling in very low standards in other cases ("imperfect" relationships, excessive drinking, self-harm, etc.). Some psychology is behind this.
Yet, upon further reflection, I "have to categorize"* this seeming inconsistency as living life fully, in the moment, with a devil-may-care spirit that I can't set free as easily. Consistency is for computers, and while we can approximate their programming as needed, people are also wonderfully unpredictable, and thus, human. Viva la vida, vive el momento, or something similar!
* or, I don't want to try to figure it out any further
I probably inherited the worst characteristics of my father *and* my mother. Dad was a war hero who loved violence and tailoring and women. Mom had a stratospheric IQ and tremendous musical talent but she also could justify almost any action via reference to a slightly fantastical perspective on life.
My son has very few of my unpleasantries, for which I am grateful.
Yah I get a kick out of parents who believe their kids will have the best of both of them. Sure, that's ONE possibility, among many others, including the WORST of both. Sounds like you are keeping your son's mind busy, which is probably the most important thing for someone whose brain works real good.
Standards exist to meet a certain set of requirements or goals. Jack’s goals were not aligned to what us boring people aim for, so his standards seem “low” to us. But as a system predicated on maximizing hedonistic/material pleasure and adventure, his standards were actually pretty exacting if you think about it.
It’s not a life I can necessarily condone, but he executed it well…and if there’s anything I’ve learned in corporate America, there’s money to be made and legacies to be established executing horrible plans terribly well.
The idea of applying standards for seemingly unrestrained, relatively unthinking hedonistic behavior seems to go against the spirit of such behavior. However, I do agree with you that such standards were followed, blindly or not!
My confusion lies in the mix of what are classically, or morally, considered low and high standards. I know what you mean by "boring" and feel like I'd like more excitement now and then, but it depends on exactly what boring means. This may be a topic in itself.
Yeah, my response to people who find a “traditional” life boring is that maybe THEY are boring, and just covering up their own lack of substance, purpose, and meaning with wild activity.
And yes, there’s room for wild, fun, adventurous, even foolish activity in a “traditional” lifestyle.
There’s nothing boring about watching your child learn something new or spending a nice night with a woman who truly loves you. Granted, some of those nights before we had kids were a lot more fun. The mornings too
English is a very precise language because it's a polyglot heavily influenced by five languages, with borrow words from additional tongues, so there are fine shadings of meanings between words.
As for the pixelation of language, making it less precise, I suppose that's hand in glove with changing the meaning of words, something about which both Orwell and Confucious warned.
I can’t take much credit, it’s assigned by his English class, not me personally. But we did select this private school for a reason…even if the primary reason was because they’ll trade my wife’s services as a teacher directly for tuition, cutting out any taxes, such that what passes for an entry level teacher salary in the Midwest will cover a private school education for 4 children.
When we accepted that college (and even completing high school) was meant for only a small portion of society, the intellectual rigor could match the abilities of the "elites" who were educated. Newspapers, novels, etc. were written by and intended for a smaller audience who could grasp concepts that would have always been lost on the common man.
The broadening of education to the masses has had a lot of beneficial effects on society, but things like the language are among the casualties. When your curriculum has to be attainable for the 40th percentile, and teachable by (generously) the 70th percentile, the nuance of the classical writers is lost.
I suspect it won't be long before we're all speaking in texting slang.
"Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school, is giving members of his profession heart palpitations.
Goldfarb, 78, says new “anti-racism” med school policies are lowering standards, reducing students to the color of their skin and corrupting medicine in general — much to the outrage of his fellow faculty members.
“I understand we need to give people more opportunities,” Goldfarb, a trained nephrologist, told The Post. “But there are some things you can’t sacrifice. This focus on diversity means we’re going to take someone with a certain skin color because we think they’re OK, that they can do the work. But we’re not going to look for the best and the brightest. We’re going to look for people who are just OK to make sure we have the right mixture of ethnic groups in our medical schools.”
One thing that drives me nuts about engineers and their documentation is that they use textual redundancy exactly the same way the Old Testament discusses lineage.
Bulls like Rodney will do anything. Shape, size, attributes, age and/or looks do not matter if they have a functioning vagina or accept anal. There is a whole Cuck world out there on the internet.
I'm thinking back to when he was maybe 32 and he had sex with three waffle house employees over the course of a winter, all in the bathroom. One of them was alright. The other two were 200 plus pounds and perhaps 15 years older than him
Yeah, but when hubby has to literally hoist her into the missionary position, something that's kinda the definition of unsexy, I understand some bulls have deep misgivings, and even have difficulty performing.
I really enjoy trying to find ways to make impressions with spoken words, and being versed in written words helps immensely. You can't easily pack the density of that Pope quote into conversational speech, but if you distill those concepts a bit, understand your audience, and include the right affectations, you have a powerful tool. That was an impressive bit of writing. Some fuckin' deep-ass shit.
I can’t remember the last time I heard someone use the correct “militate against” instead of “mitigate against.” Next you’ll be telling me you know what “begs the question” actually means, in contrast to how it is normally employed by the Liebermans of the world.
I know what the phrase means but my rule about "begging the question" is to be sure to instead say "raises the question" or "presumptive", depending on what I mean.
Ebonics isn't a proper language because a language (English, French, Italian, what have you) has rules and structure. Grammar, syntax, spelling, etc.. While there's always slang and profanity, these elements represent a fringe corruption, a rounding error of sorts.
Ebonics, on the other hand, is almost ENTIRELY slang and profanity. It has no grammar, no syntax, no approved spellings. Formal structure is entirely absent and replaced by a semi-systematized throwing of verbal feces.
I had hoped to learn how to write in college but was disappointed by the instruction. Had an incident report filed because I among other things protested having to watch a movie about minimum wage in an English class. The goal of university education is not edification but rather indoctrination. Fuckin’ troof bro.
I had an English class in college where the professor let us pick a movie to watch on an upcoming day, and the winner was "Requiem for a Dream."
Otherwise known as the movie that made me hate Darren Aronofsky films.
I remember packing my bag after it was over, standing up and seething with rage, pointing (literally POINTING) my finger at a quite-shocked professor as I practically spat, "I HATE cruelty, I HATE watching people suffer and the only way THAT could be considered art is through a COMPLETE COLLAPSE of artistic standards!"
Amateur. Everyone knows 'Career Opportunities' or 'Mulholland Drive' are the films for that ('Rocketeer' gets honorable mention), at least until they were surgically forever defaced like so many Afghan Buddhas.
I once heard that education without retention is just entertainment, or something like that. So while I appreciate the precise linguistics lesson here, I hope that it will slide graciously into the education column.
What was the inspiration for this piece? A self-reminder that you’re handily (maybe not the right word) smarter than a majority (definitely the right word) of automotive enthusiasts?
At least I benefit by adding to my list of “must reads, but when” from your references. So keep it up!
“Horrible” always seems to be worse than “terrible.” But at what subjective point does something like the aftermath of a hurricane in Florida go from one to the other?
That's pretty good! Horror is observational by default and by its general nature. A roller coaster terrifies but does not horrify; reading about Mayan human sacrifice is the opposite, since all the Mayans are gone.
Depends on the pickle. Try Topor's Natural Barrel Dills, a classic cold pack garlic dill pickke with a recipe very much like my grandmother's. Nothing ruins a pickle more than vinegar.
It may not come across in my typo ridden improperly punctuated comments, but among my workmates I am considered erudite on good days, and something between prolix and incomprehensible on others.
I write novels for a living. So yeah, I really get this. I also hate S&W, it's got some stupid crap in it. I honestly avoid all of those guides because they all disagree with each other, which proves that in English, all the rules are subjective and they change constantly.
Also that few people know them.
I love when I get told by folks that my grammar is wrong, when it's not. Though to be honest, I don't care if the grammar is right anymore (for all that I do try to keep it correct - except for when I intentionally break it) because not enough people who read fiction these days CARE if the grammar is right.
They only care if the story is good and if they're enjoying it.
And while I employ an editor (though for my tradpub stuff they have their own editor) if I change editors then I have to learn a whole new set of grammar rules, because every editor has their own.
Because once again, English grammar is subjective (that's why no one makes a machine that can find grammar errors that actually works).
I concede that I come from a background in journalism (30 years in newspapers, digital news outlets, and two national magazines), but you are the first person I've heard say the rules of grammar are subjective. I'm not arguing that you are wrong, just saying I've never heard that point made by anyone in the news or narrative nonfiction business.
I'll preface this by saying I know nothing whatsoever about fiction publishing, but I'd argue that style guides are essential to ensure you don't have to learn new rules with each new editor. I concede the guides can be arcane, (Associated Press, anyone?) and often conflict (Chicago: serial comma. AP: no serial comma. Chicago: Spell out whole numerals smaller than 101. AP: Spell out whole numerals smaller than 10. The list goes on.) but they ensure everyone is playing by the same rules within the organization and, for the most part, across the industry. Every organization I've worked with has had a preferred style guide (usually AP, occasionally Chicago, sometimes elements of both), a house style guide covering things specific to their topic, and a preferred dictionary (usually Merriam-Webster.).
A freelancer writing a longform feature for me should not have to learn an entirely different set of rules to write the same story for another outlet.
I'm a best selling author. I make 6 figures a year and sell a lot of books.
I've seen authors with a zero grammar skills, authors who have literally no knowledge of grammar and even after they fixed their books (because they were making a strong -7- figures a year and selling literally millions of copies - so now they could afford an editor) the grammar was still pretty bad.
And while some people cared, none of them stopped buying his books.
And after he made the minimal attempt at fixing it - that was deemed 'good enough' by his hundreds of thousands of fans.
Journalism is NOT the same as creative writing and story telling. You really do have a much smaller and more limited readership. So if someone in that readership says something, it has a bigger impact because your company realizes it. But people, especially men, are so hungry for good non-political, non 'all men suck' stories that they really don't care about grammar.
AT ALL.
Now I'm not saying I ignore it, I don't. But I have learned that the rules ARE very much subjective nowadays. And all I have to do is say 'it's my in-house style' and that stops things right there.
It's funny that the publisher who I have recently started to write for as well, says my grammar drives them crazy (I have a predilection for long sentences) but they don't change any more of it than my hired editors for my indy work. Because it's not wrong.
The thing is, grammar really isn't as important as most English teachers and editors seem to think. Maybe that's fallout from all the BS that's come down the pike the last thirty years. I know my grammar skills aren't what they used to be back when I was acing all of my English lessons in college. But people are first and foremost concerned with content. Typo's next. Grammar is like 5th or 6th. And with the rules always changing (the use of the apostrophe has actually changed in my lifetime and now they're talking about getting rid of it completely) you can't just tell me that the rules are hard and fast.
You are living my dream. I'm somewhat risk averse (married and three kids now, although we made 2 international moves with them in tow) and I have no desire to self-promote. I admire people who can do that.
I read an article in the past talking about how the rule against ending sentences with a preposition is bullshit, some style writer or something from the 1800s just coming up with it out of nowhere and imposing it upon the rest of us. I became a lot less careful about that, but there are things that sound right and things that sound wrong, and those I try to avoid. I suppose that's part of the subjectivity of grammar, because not everything will sound "right" to everyone.
I write entirely based upon whether or not it sounds correct. I have essentially forgotten any formal training, e.g. rules and their names, in grammar over the years.
Alas, I am but an illiterate simpleton who can no longer communicate with the written word.
Writing a story, to me, is like writing a song. It's more about the lyrics and the music than it is about the 'rules'. Though the old saw about 'knowing the rules so you know how to break them' does help.
As to how I got here? I started writing evenings and weekends. I learned the trade and improved my craft that way. But it wasn't easy and I put a tremendous amount of time and effort into it. 100 hour weeks are not an exaggeration.
First and foremost, I want to take a moment to stress that I was not and am not being argumentative; I enjoy talking and learning about writing, and I have had few interactions with fiction writers during my career. I appreciate your insights. I agree that journalism is not the same as creative writing and fiction, and that the situations are different. I simply offer a perspective from the other side of the fence.
I too have seen authors with zero grammar skills, and I've worked with editors who shouldn't be permitted to touch a grocery list. And, like you, I've witnessed the precipitous decline in respect for the art and craft of writing and editing by those who practice it and read it.
You raise an excellent point about people - publishers and readers alike - being first and foremost concerned with content; that, to my mind, is one of the tragedies of the digital age (the rise of which coincides with the 30-year timeline for all the BS that's come down the pike): The unslakable thirst for "content" has made the majority of writing a commodity, with the subsequent reduction in quality that invariably brings. Putting aside the obvious degradation in the quality of writing that has wrought, it has had an impact on grammar. That said, there are places within journalism and narrative nonfiction where the rules are not subjective. Anyone telling an editor at any of the publications I've worked for "it's my in-house style" will learn that lesson quickly.
I concede the publications I've worked for may be outliers, and I understand and appreciate that English is a dynamic language and the rules evolve. But those changes shouldn't be the result of a whim, nor should they be arbitrary. I'd also argue that many of the changes we are seeing are occurring only because too many people never learned the rules to begin with, or feel that grammar doesn't matter. But I will go to my grave believing, to paraphrase Jack, that it does. If that makes me archaic or quixotic, I'm OK with that.
The average author makes about 30K a year. So even if it was only that, it'd still be head and shoulders over the folks winning all those 'prestigious awards'.
Which is why I throw that out there. So that those who know, know.
It's weird for me to be in the 'big time' as an author. It's weird that so many people in the business now know who I am. I just wanted to have fun doing something I enjoyed. As a consultant working in Software and Engineering, I never had to worry about lawyers. Now I have -five-. I never had to worry about crazies - now I go armed everywhere (yes, I have gotten death threats). I never had my work copied, now I've spawned a genre and created a trope.
Success is almost not worth the cost of admission.
I never understood the phrase 'a victim of my own success' until now.
Maybe if there were author groupies (the cute kind like the rock stars and sports stars get) it wouldn't be so rough! :-D
(and yes, I've been drinking. It's after 12 on a friday and the last week has been full of 'interesting' things).
Oh, and I did laugh when I saw your reply. It is pretty funny.
I also commonly use the expression "words have meanings." My repeated use of it commonly draws the eyerolls and accusations of pedanticism from those closest to me. However, I came by it from anoth.er way from a another source that made a big impact on me. I was in a law class when a particularly ornery professor energetically examined a student in front of me. She kept using synonyms for the subject matter in her response (I do not remember the specifics, and I noticed nothing in her statements) and he said something to the following effect:
"Stop right there. Why do you keep switching words?" No answer from terrified student who shrank in her shoes.
"Creative writing has ruined all of you! You have been taught to use synonyms and slightly different words to avoid repetition and smooth the flow of your work? That is ridiculous. When you use different words you are describing different things. The audience you are trying to smooth things for does not understand it anyway. Your attempt to keep them interested has cost you precision and may have consequences for you and your clients........ WORD HAVE MEANINGS!"
I learned a lot in that class. But that is knowledge I feel utilize the most.
I am a lawyer who often writes for laypeople. There's a happy medium. If you value only precision at all costs, you will write something that no one will ever read, and there will be consequences for that too. Make considered judgments about the level of precision you need to be accurate while also keeping your audience engaged.
Yes, but the profession of law has warped the language, twisted it so that words mean things in court, and in briefs, that they don't mean in the real world.
"Frivolous Lawsuit," for example, is one phrase that means one thing to a truck driver and another to an attorney.
This is why I subscribe! You transit from the profane to the sublime in the span of two posts and I enjoy both equally!
Absolutely. Columns like this and the glorious contrast with the Rodney story make this subscription a stunning bargain.
After further consideration on this topic (and a "heart" on the above comment), I am both troubled and fascinated by Jack's adherence to very high standards in some cases (language, sartorial needs, racing etiquette, etc.) while seemingly reveling in very low standards in other cases ("imperfect" relationships, excessive drinking, self-harm, etc.). Some psychology is behind this.
Yet, upon further reflection, I "have to categorize"* this seeming inconsistency as living life fully, in the moment, with a devil-may-care spirit that I can't set free as easily. Consistency is for computers, and while we can approximate their programming as needed, people are also wonderfully unpredictable, and thus, human. Viva la vida, vive el momento, or something similar!
* or, I don't want to try to figure it out any further
I probably inherited the worst characteristics of my father *and* my mother. Dad was a war hero who loved violence and tailoring and women. Mom had a stratospheric IQ and tremendous musical talent but she also could justify almost any action via reference to a slightly fantastical perspective on life.
My son has very few of my unpleasantries, for which I am grateful.
Yah I get a kick out of parents who believe their kids will have the best of both of them. Sure, that's ONE possibility, among many others, including the WORST of both. Sounds like you are keeping your son's mind busy, which is probably the most important thing for someone whose brain works real good.
Standards exist to meet a certain set of requirements or goals. Jack’s goals were not aligned to what us boring people aim for, so his standards seem “low” to us. But as a system predicated on maximizing hedonistic/material pleasure and adventure, his standards were actually pretty exacting if you think about it.
It’s not a life I can necessarily condone, but he executed it well…and if there’s anything I’ve learned in corporate America, there’s money to be made and legacies to be established executing horrible plans terribly well.
The idea of applying standards for seemingly unrestrained, relatively unthinking hedonistic behavior seems to go against the spirit of such behavior. However, I do agree with you that such standards were followed, blindly or not!
My confusion lies in the mix of what are classically, or morally, considered low and high standards. I know what you mean by "boring" and feel like I'd like more excitement now and then, but it depends on exactly what boring means. This may be a topic in itself.
Yeah, my response to people who find a “traditional” life boring is that maybe THEY are boring, and just covering up their own lack of substance, purpose, and meaning with wild activity.
And yes, there’s room for wild, fun, adventurous, even foolish activity in a “traditional” lifestyle.
Plus one for this insight. You meet basic bitches in Singapore penthouses and deeply fascinating people in Amish country.
There’s nothing boring about watching your child learn something new or spending a nice night with a woman who truly loves you. Granted, some of those nights before we had kids were a lot more fun. The mornings too
I subscribed for the free t-shirt. Still waiting on that
Wait, I promised a free T shirt? Cause I have a few to get rid of
You have any of the blue ones with the skull on it left? Mine is at the end of it's useful life. If you do, I'd actually pay for it.
I believe I do. I'll look in the storage unit and drop you a note.
I'll only be satisfied when Jack finally mans up and transits IN the Sublime.
He knows what I'm talking about.
Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
English is a very precise language because it's a polyglot heavily influenced by five languages, with borrow words from additional tongues, so there are fine shadings of meanings between words.
As for the pixelation of language, making it less precise, I suppose that's hand in glove with changing the meaning of words, something about which both Orwell and Confucious warned.
Confucius say, "The degradation of language is like a boot stamping on the face of humanity, forever."
"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet."
Abraham Lincoln
EXCELLENT ! .
I've been getting berated for "using big words" since the 1960's .
English is a fascinating language, I wish I knew it as well as you .
-Nate
If it makes you feel any better, my 7th grader’s current assigned reading is Fahrenheit 451.
It does a bit.
I was reading full length novels by that age and I have to laugh at the lowest common denominator drive taking over every system.
Oh, man, we are in trouble.
I can’t take much credit, it’s assigned by his English class, not me personally. But we did select this private school for a reason…even if the primary reason was because they’ll trade my wife’s services as a teacher directly for tuition, cutting out any taxes, such that what passes for an entry level teacher salary in the Midwest will cover a private school education for 4 children.
Great post.
When we accepted that college (and even completing high school) was meant for only a small portion of society, the intellectual rigor could match the abilities of the "elites" who were educated. Newspapers, novels, etc. were written by and intended for a smaller audience who could grasp concepts that would have always been lost on the common man.
The broadening of education to the masses has had a lot of beneficial effects on society, but things like the language are among the casualties. When your curriculum has to be attainable for the 40th percentile, and teachable by (generously) the 70th percentile, the nuance of the classical writers is lost.
I suspect it won't be long before we're all speaking in texting slang.
I hear people say LOL out loud. Sometimes I hear my oldest verbalizing "WTF". It's happening before our eyes. Or is it our ears?
There's that fag talk we talked about.
I'm increasingly convinced that movie is a documentary from the future.
Actually, you'd have a hard time convincing me that doctors aren't already this 'tarded.
Look up medical school MCAT and gpa acceptance scores by race and then tell me which doctor you will pick?
Doctors will be assigned to avoid just this problem.
Stanley Goldfarb MD, professor emeritous at UPenn, agrees: https://nypost.com/2022/09/29/upenn-doctor-anti-racist-policies-are-wrecking-american-medicine/
"Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school, is giving members of his profession heart palpitations.
Goldfarb, 78, says new “anti-racism” med school policies are lowering standards, reducing students to the color of their skin and corrupting medicine in general — much to the outrage of his fellow faculty members.
“I understand we need to give people more opportunities,” Goldfarb, a trained nephrologist, told The Post. “But there are some things you can’t sacrifice. This focus on diversity means we’re going to take someone with a certain skin color because we think they’re OK, that they can do the work. But we’re not going to look for the best and the brightest. We’re going to look for people who are just OK to make sure we have the right mixture of ethnic groups in our medical schools.”
Yes, education, like money, is relative to how much everyone else has.
I should've said "the value of money"
This substack is rapidly acquiring escape velocity! I AM HANGING ON!!!!
I try to live my life by the Engineer's writing motto: Engineers write good.
One thing that drives me nuts about engineers and their documentation is that they use textual redundancy exactly the same way the Old Testament discusses lineage.
"Husband-of-burlesque-circus-nipple-play-expert"
Why do I get the feeling this relates to the "dudes who watch their wives get banged by other dudes" talk in the comments of the last post?
The first rule of letting people bang your wife is that you have to find someone who wants to do it.
Ouch. That one is going to leave a mark.
Bulls like Rodney will do anything. Shape, size, attributes, age and/or looks do not matter if they have a functioning vagina or accept anal. There is a whole Cuck world out there on the internet.
"Once you've seen one woman naked...you want to see the rest of them naked."
- Ron White
I'm thinking back to when he was maybe 32 and he had sex with three waffle house employees over the course of a winter, all in the bathroom. One of them was alright. The other two were 200 plus pounds and perhaps 15 years older than him
"I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom."
- Humpty Hump of Digital Underground
Which reminds me of ANOTHER Rodney story. But I'd better let the fallout from this one calm down first!
Yeah, but when hubby has to literally hoist her into the missionary position, something that's kinda the definition of unsexy, I understand some bulls have deep misgivings, and even have difficulty performing.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ddPmuEV4GJA
One burlesque-circus-nipple-play-expert at work.
I really enjoy trying to find ways to make impressions with spoken words, and being versed in written words helps immensely. You can't easily pack the density of that Pope quote into conversational speech, but if you distill those concepts a bit, understand your audience, and include the right affectations, you have a powerful tool. That was an impressive bit of writing. Some fuckin' deep-ass shit.
I can’t remember the last time I heard someone use the correct “militate against” instead of “mitigate against.” Next you’ll be telling me you know what “begs the question” actually means, in contrast to how it is normally employed by the Liebermans of the world.
A good doggie begs the question.
That is a phrase I never use, and it never occurred to me until tonight that perhaps it's because I never truly understood it.
I know what the phrase means but my rule about "begging the question" is to be sure to instead say "raises the question" or "presumptive", depending on what I mean.
Here's my take on Ebonics:
Ebonics isn't a proper language because a language (English, French, Italian, what have you) has rules and structure. Grammar, syntax, spelling, etc.. While there's always slang and profanity, these elements represent a fringe corruption, a rounding error of sorts.
Ebonics, on the other hand, is almost ENTIRELY slang and profanity. It has no grammar, no syntax, no approved spellings. Formal structure is entirely absent and replaced by a semi-systematized throwing of verbal feces.
I had hoped to learn how to write in college but was disappointed by the instruction. Had an incident report filed because I among other things protested having to watch a movie about minimum wage in an English class. The goal of university education is not edification but rather indoctrination. Fuckin’ troof bro.
I had an English class in college where the professor let us pick a movie to watch on an upcoming day, and the winner was "Requiem for a Dream."
Otherwise known as the movie that made me hate Darren Aronofsky films.
I remember packing my bag after it was over, standing up and seething with rage, pointing (literally POINTING) my finger at a quite-shocked professor as I practically spat, "I HATE cruelty, I HATE watching people suffer and the only way THAT could be considered art is through a COMPLETE COLLAPSE of artistic standards!"
Then I stormed out of the room and went home.
Good for you and I say that with the correct amount of irony: zero
Plus it was very disconcerting to see Jennifer Connely in that situation no one should be subjected to that
Yeah I had to watch it six or seven times just out of concern...
Amateur. Everyone knows 'Career Opportunities' or 'Mulholland Drive' are the films for that ('Rocketeer' gets honorable mention), at least until they were surgically forever defaced like so many Afghan Buddhas.
I'll be in my bunk.
No pal YOU'RE the amateur. Because you didn't mention "The Hot Zone" with her and Virginia Madsen.
Ha, we are both wrong. It's 'The Hot Spot' and 'Mulholland Falls'.
'Mulholland Drive' is another film with its own set of well known assets.
If you stopped watching at that one, count yourself lucky. His films run steeply downhill from there.
I saw "Pi" once.
ONCE.
You shouldn't hang me on a hook, Johnny...
I once heard that education without retention is just entertainment, or something like that. So while I appreciate the precise linguistics lesson here, I hope that it will slide graciously into the education column.
What was the inspiration for this piece? A self-reminder that you’re handily (maybe not the right word) smarter than a majority (definitely the right word) of automotive enthusiasts?
At least I benefit by adding to my list of “must reads, but when” from your references. So keep it up!
Cheers.
It was a conversation with my son where I felt he used horrible in place of terrible.
What is the difference between the words?
“Horrible” always seems to be worse than “terrible.” But at what subjective point does something like the aftermath of a hurricane in Florida go from one to the other?
That's pretty good! Horror is observational by default and by its general nature. A roller coaster terrifies but does not horrify; reading about Mayan human sacrifice is the opposite, since all the Mayans are gone.
I’ll remember this! Learn something new every day! 😎
Terror is what the government inflicts upon disfavored groups.
Horror is what I feel when I find pickles in a hamburger.
Depends on the pickle. Try Topor's Natural Barrel Dills, a classic cold pack garlic dill pickke with a recipe very much like my grandmother's. Nothing ruins a pickle more than vinegar.
You'd sooner get me to put milk on cereal than to eat a burger with pickles.
If I may add - God is terrible, but never horrible.
If God wasn't terrible, He couldn't be God. See Isaiah 45:7.
It may not come across in my typo ridden improperly punctuated comments, but among my workmates I am considered erudite on good days, and something between prolix and incomprehensible on others.
I am humbled here.
I write novels for a living. So yeah, I really get this. I also hate S&W, it's got some stupid crap in it. I honestly avoid all of those guides because they all disagree with each other, which proves that in English, all the rules are subjective and they change constantly.
Also that few people know them.
I love when I get told by folks that my grammar is wrong, when it's not. Though to be honest, I don't care if the grammar is right anymore (for all that I do try to keep it correct - except for when I intentionally break it) because not enough people who read fiction these days CARE if the grammar is right.
They only care if the story is good and if they're enjoying it.
And while I employ an editor (though for my tradpub stuff they have their own editor) if I change editors then I have to learn a whole new set of grammar rules, because every editor has their own.
Because once again, English grammar is subjective (that's why no one makes a machine that can find grammar errors that actually works).
I concede that I come from a background in journalism (30 years in newspapers, digital news outlets, and two national magazines), but you are the first person I've heard say the rules of grammar are subjective. I'm not arguing that you are wrong, just saying I've never heard that point made by anyone in the news or narrative nonfiction business.
I'll preface this by saying I know nothing whatsoever about fiction publishing, but I'd argue that style guides are essential to ensure you don't have to learn new rules with each new editor. I concede the guides can be arcane, (Associated Press, anyone?) and often conflict (Chicago: serial comma. AP: no serial comma. Chicago: Spell out whole numerals smaller than 101. AP: Spell out whole numerals smaller than 10. The list goes on.) but they ensure everyone is playing by the same rules within the organization and, for the most part, across the industry. Every organization I've worked with has had a preferred style guide (usually AP, occasionally Chicago, sometimes elements of both), a house style guide covering things specific to their topic, and a preferred dictionary (usually Merriam-Webster.).
A freelancer writing a longform feature for me should not have to learn an entirely different set of rules to write the same story for another outlet.
You forgot AP's first style rule: Thou shall always hew to the leftist narrative.
I'm a best selling author. I make 6 figures a year and sell a lot of books.
I've seen authors with a zero grammar skills, authors who have literally no knowledge of grammar and even after they fixed their books (because they were making a strong -7- figures a year and selling literally millions of copies - so now they could afford an editor) the grammar was still pretty bad.
And while some people cared, none of them stopped buying his books.
And after he made the minimal attempt at fixing it - that was deemed 'good enough' by his hundreds of thousands of fans.
Journalism is NOT the same as creative writing and story telling. You really do have a much smaller and more limited readership. So if someone in that readership says something, it has a bigger impact because your company realizes it. But people, especially men, are so hungry for good non-political, non 'all men suck' stories that they really don't care about grammar.
AT ALL.
Now I'm not saying I ignore it, I don't. But I have learned that the rules ARE very much subjective nowadays. And all I have to do is say 'it's my in-house style' and that stops things right there.
It's funny that the publisher who I have recently started to write for as well, says my grammar drives them crazy (I have a predilection for long sentences) but they don't change any more of it than my hired editors for my indy work. Because it's not wrong.
The thing is, grammar really isn't as important as most English teachers and editors seem to think. Maybe that's fallout from all the BS that's come down the pike the last thirty years. I know my grammar skills aren't what they used to be back when I was acing all of my English lessons in college. But people are first and foremost concerned with content. Typo's next. Grammar is like 5th or 6th. And with the rules always changing (the use of the apostrophe has actually changed in my lifetime and now they're talking about getting rid of it completely) you can't just tell me that the rules are hard and fast.
Because they aren't.
You are living my dream. I'm somewhat risk averse (married and three kids now, although we made 2 international moves with them in tow) and I have no desire to self-promote. I admire people who can do that.
I read an article in the past talking about how the rule against ending sentences with a preposition is bullshit, some style writer or something from the 1800s just coming up with it out of nowhere and imposing it upon the rest of us. I became a lot less careful about that, but there are things that sound right and things that sound wrong, and those I try to avoid. I suppose that's part of the subjectivity of grammar, because not everything will sound "right" to everyone.
I write entirely based upon whether or not it sounds correct. I have essentially forgotten any formal training, e.g. rules and their names, in grammar over the years.
Alas, I am but an illiterate simpleton who can no longer communicate with the written word.
Writing a story, to me, is like writing a song. It's more about the lyrics and the music than it is about the 'rules'. Though the old saw about 'knowing the rules so you know how to break them' does help.
As to how I got here? I started writing evenings and weekends. I learned the trade and improved my craft that way. But it wasn't easy and I put a tremendous amount of time and effort into it. 100 hour weeks are not an exaggeration.
First and foremost, I want to take a moment to stress that I was not and am not being argumentative; I enjoy talking and learning about writing, and I have had few interactions with fiction writers during my career. I appreciate your insights. I agree that journalism is not the same as creative writing and fiction, and that the situations are different. I simply offer a perspective from the other side of the fence.
I too have seen authors with zero grammar skills, and I've worked with editors who shouldn't be permitted to touch a grocery list. And, like you, I've witnessed the precipitous decline in respect for the art and craft of writing and editing by those who practice it and read it.
You raise an excellent point about people - publishers and readers alike - being first and foremost concerned with content; that, to my mind, is one of the tragedies of the digital age (the rise of which coincides with the 30-year timeline for all the BS that's come down the pike): The unslakable thirst for "content" has made the majority of writing a commodity, with the subsequent reduction in quality that invariably brings. Putting aside the obvious degradation in the quality of writing that has wrought, it has had an impact on grammar. That said, there are places within journalism and narrative nonfiction where the rules are not subjective. Anyone telling an editor at any of the publications I've worked for "it's my in-house style" will learn that lesson quickly.
I concede the publications I've worked for may be outliers, and I understand and appreciate that English is a dynamic language and the rules evolve. But those changes shouldn't be the result of a whim, nor should they be arbitrary. I'd also argue that many of the changes we are seeing are occurring only because too many people never learned the rules to begin with, or feel that grammar doesn't matter. But I will go to my grave believing, to paraphrase Jack, that it does. If that makes me archaic or quixotic, I'm OK with that.
$100,002 a year. Nice. Sorry, i had to
The average author makes about 30K a year. So even if it was only that, it'd still be head and shoulders over the folks winning all those 'prestigious awards'.
Which is why I throw that out there. So that those who know, know.
It's weird for me to be in the 'big time' as an author. It's weird that so many people in the business now know who I am. I just wanted to have fun doing something I enjoyed. As a consultant working in Software and Engineering, I never had to worry about lawyers. Now I have -five-. I never had to worry about crazies - now I go armed everywhere (yes, I have gotten death threats). I never had my work copied, now I've spawned a genre and created a trope.
Success is almost not worth the cost of admission.
I never understood the phrase 'a victim of my own success' until now.
Maybe if there were author groupies (the cute kind like the rock stars and sports stars get) it wouldn't be so rough! :-D
(and yes, I've been drinking. It's after 12 on a friday and the last week has been full of 'interesting' things).
Oh, and I did laugh when I saw your reply. It is pretty funny.
I also commonly use the expression "words have meanings." My repeated use of it commonly draws the eyerolls and accusations of pedanticism from those closest to me. However, I came by it from anoth.er way from a another source that made a big impact on me. I was in a law class when a particularly ornery professor energetically examined a student in front of me. She kept using synonyms for the subject matter in her response (I do not remember the specifics, and I noticed nothing in her statements) and he said something to the following effect:
"Stop right there. Why do you keep switching words?" No answer from terrified student who shrank in her shoes.
"Creative writing has ruined all of you! You have been taught to use synonyms and slightly different words to avoid repetition and smooth the flow of your work? That is ridiculous. When you use different words you are describing different things. The audience you are trying to smooth things for does not understand it anyway. Your attempt to keep them interested has cost you precision and may have consequences for you and your clients........ WORD HAVE MEANINGS!"
I learned a lot in that class. But that is knowledge I feel utilize the most.
I am a lawyer who often writes for laypeople. There's a happy medium. If you value only precision at all costs, you will write something that no one will ever read, and there will be consequences for that too. Make considered judgments about the level of precision you need to be accurate while also keeping your audience engaged.
Yes, but the profession of law has warped the language, twisted it so that words mean things in court, and in briefs, that they don't mean in the real world.
"Frivolous Lawsuit," for example, is one phrase that means one thing to a truck driver and another to an attorney.