writing

Everyone Needs an Editor

Rhetorical Mastery, , , , , ,

Who hasn’t read something, including this blog, only to find a sudden and apparently unplanned descent into verbal mayhem?  Perhaps the author didn’t notice his elbow resting on the keyboard. Perhaps the four-legged family member decided to add a few keystrokes.

Creating sentences on paper or with pixels poses lifelong challenges.  Even accomplished writers usually demur if you tell them they are masters of their craft. Most will admit to writing in drafts that number in the double digits, and most share the almost universal experience of re-reading old material with the nagging feeling that it could have been better. Writing is one skill that is rarely mastered.  Full literacy is a lifelong project. Even so, an occasional stray word left in the wrong neighborhood is not the largest problem. Difficulties arise at the other end of the continuum, where what appears “finished” to a novice is only a pale version of what could be.  Early drafts deserve to be thoroughly marked up.

Everyone needs an editor. Two sets of eyes will improve almost any text.  And why not? Academic presses often send a manuscript out to three experts for review before they green-light a book. Good surgeons often welcome another set of eyes to review scans and x-rays.  Playwrights do workshop readings to discover dead passages or weak third acts.  And advertisers use illustrators to ‘mock up’ storyboards for television commercials before they commit to a full-scale film shoot.  Rare is a  writer like John McPhee, who is so thorough in his research and phrasing that an editor seems unnecessary.

Everyone needs an editor. Two sets of eyes will improve almost any text.

I plead with my students to try out their work on others they know. This is perhaps the single best reason to have a college roommate.  But I still get projects that describe Washington and Jefferson as “too pivotal presidents,” or analyses of “communication problems that defy easy remededeys.”  And woe to folks who count on being bailed out by a computer spell-check program.  My computer was fine with the word “dissent” in the original pull-quote at the top of this piece.

These cases may sound like this need is limited to professionals. But recall the last time you read a family’s holiday letter that revealed more about one of its members than better judgment would allow. Johnny may not want everyone to know that he’s been “challenged” to complete his remedial math course. Such a letter should have been vetted by someone else with a more protective instinct.

The need for an outsider’s input is also apparent for missives that come from a manager who says too much or includes too little.  For example, it would be helpful to know the day and time for that important meeting that she has just announced. And every person mentioned in such a piece has the right to expect that their name will be spelled correctly. Smart managers will usually welcome a second pair of eyes on a document planned for wide distribution.  But certainly not all. The most insecure may not appreciate being saved from errors by more literate underlings.

Who hasn’t read this blog only to find passages where the best explanations for the sudden disintegration of a sentence is that the writer experienced an errant brain synapse?  It’s the curse of blogging that pieces are let loose in the world too soon, with the equivalent of seams gaping open, buttons missing and tags still attached.

Sorry about those slip-ups.  I need an editor.

Yellow bar graphic

You Can Say That Again

Problem Practices, , , , , , , ,
               Wikimedia Commons

The idea of forbidden language is offensive in an open society.  Fortunately, the resources of language can usually outflank any administration’s clumsy attempts at thought control.

 

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.” --Washington Post, December 15, 2017.

“A Fool’s Errand” is a phrase perfectly suited to the attempts of any bureaucracy to censor the words of their employees.  But it’s doubly hard to get one’s head around a diktat coming from this enfeebled executive branch that would try to control language used by one of the nation’s premier federal agencies.

We are lucky to have the Centers for Disease Control and the 15,000 dedicated science and public health professionals it employs.  Wikipedia notes that about half of these folks have advanced degrees.  Many are the world’s leading authorities on illness and the control of infectious diseases.  Whose bright idea was it to try to make certain public health terms forbidden?  Perhaps the same kind of neanderthal who  might ask a singer to only produce notes on the major scale.

The organizational impulse to ban certain unwelcome ideas is hardly novel. Employees “fronting” for industrial or institutional interests will frequently learn what to say, as well as the lexicon of terms to avoid.  But it’s especially insidious when lists of unacceptable terms show up in our civil life, where there should be unfettered public discussion.  This is why there is an emerging sense of satisfaction in the release of the new film, The Post.  It celebrates the 1971 decision by Katherine Graham and others at the Washington Post to publish a secret government history of the ill-fated Vietnam War.  A gag order has already been issued to the New York Times.

Widespread revulsion to the CDC gag order has apparently led to some backtracking on what the policy analysts can say. But these kinds of missives keep coming from all over, including state and federal leaders averting their eyes from subjects like “climate change” or “reproductive rights.”  Every instance is a reminder of how hostile the dead hand of censorship can be.

To be sure, in everyday life it makes perfect sense to consider terms appropriate or inappropriate for the settings in which they are used.  Editors are still scratching their heads over whether to print or broadcast some of the vulgarities uttered in the 2016 Presidential campaign. But monitoring language for appropriateness is very different than forbidding it in all contexts.

Effective synonyms can save the day. One can only hope cowed agency employees will have the will to use them.

Luckily, the resources of language are far greater than a pathetic list of banned terms proposed by management at the CDC.  If “vulnerable” doesn’t work for the administration, how about “exposed,” “insecure,” “defenseless,”  or “at risk”?  If “entitlement” seems dangerous, how about “privileged,” “given special prerogatives,” “deserving,” “one’s birthright” or “owed to a citizen”?  If “evidence-based” or “science-based” seem inexplicably risky to inflict on the public, how about “reasonable,” “rational,” “empirical,” “based on observation and study” or “what has been proven through systematic observation”?  Like a star broken field runner, the resources of rhetoric can easily outrun clumsy attempts at thought control. Effective synonyms can save the day. One can only hope cowed agency employees will have the will to use them.