The e-mail I just sent

Dear Mr. President:

A year ago I woke up mornings insanely early to stand in the cold outside subway stations on Broadway and encourage the citizens of Clinton country to vote for the man with the funny name and the ability to bring us together, a man I'd heard speak a year and a half before at the Take Back America conference, a man who--I knew then--could.  I can barely believe tonight has come.  Congratulations to you and to us all.

Over this year, I have learned so much more about you, as you have learned about this nation.  I am infinitely proud to belong to a people that's chosen you as its leader.  I thank you for your hard work, for the application of your talents, and for your persistence.  And I only wish you weren't so good a writer too, because it just isn't fair.

Best,

Russell Miller

See, if you take away the apostrophe but leave the "s"...

A friend who teaches teachers how to teach reading comprehension taught me a terrific expression: "inconsiderate text."  Doesn't that just nail a particular kind of bad writing?  You know, the kind of bad writing in yesterday's post?

Well, not exactly. That text didn't write itself.

See, I got up yesterday morning and read this self-satisfied article about leaving out apostrophes.  Now I happen to love apostrophes, also commas, semi-colons, quotation marks (known in England as "inverted commas"), colons, em-dashes--nearly every kind of punctuation except the exclamation point.  I don't like exclamation points.  I use 'em, but I don't like 'em. The words are supposed make the point.

Yesterday's didn't: his or mine.  My general impression was that he, John Kelly at the WaPo, was making light of apostrophes.

Maybe he wasn't.  Maybe he was staring down a deadline, saw something blandly provocative, didn't quite know what to say, and took the easy route: superior and derisive without commitment.

My thoughts, on the other hand, were both furious and clear: "Apostrophes are critical. They're the difference between being possessed and being multiple (hence the title of this post).  Great balls of fire, man!  These are the details that makes civil discourse possible!"

Start to type, then there's an eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap in my memory.  Then, boom, there it is online, all fat words and convoluted syntax.  Obscure.  Inconsiderate.

And here I've done it again, when I could've just said: Sorry.

Metastasis of the Plural

This morning's Washington Post carries one of those local-news bits that make you wonder why columnists get paid.  It's wry, confident, and breezy in the style that's dominated feature journalism since Norman Mailer forgot he was a novelist, a style quite naturally embraced by writers whose glasses were frequently snapped by bullies in 5th grade.  As so often in matters determined to be of "human interest," the piece has no discernible news hook. This establishes the writer as a thinker of high order, because who else at the Washington Post has time to address the small corruptions that nibble at the rustproof-undercoat of life as we know it--in this case, the decline of the apostrophe.

The writer, one John Kelly, conveys both sourcing and sophistication with a deft appositive: "when I rang him up the other day."   All together, the clause signals diligence; the verb phrase telegraphs that "him" hails from Britain: the founder of an Apostrophe Protection Society, which might've been a hook had it not been organized eight years ago. 

Kelly is an editorial dualist.  As if to let us know he knows all stories have two sides, he denotatively fakes friendship, yet stakes out connotative distance, by calling his informant, one John Richards, "John."   As is journalistic custom, he not only quotes his own questions but conveys their perspicacity by--in his case alone, not in his sources'--eschewing what John Richards might call inverted commas.  So he's smart.  He brooks no bullshit.  He's on our side.

I used to work that scam. But somewhere along the line I got thinking that things matter.  Details matter. Intentions matter, but so does execution, so do words. Common courtesy matters, not only in respect for your sources but also, if not especially, in the commonest instruments of communication; and irony is a scalpel (my dermatologist pronounces it "scalPEL") best kept under lock and key, lest its wee sharp blade graze a Guernica or a Wheatfield With Crows of the heart and rip--for example, in a graphic convention that's written language's equivalent of not talking with your mouth full--a wee but unstitchable slit, an insult tiny and potent as an apostrophe.

First day at Donkey School

The other day, a friend reminded me of a conversation I still can't remember.  My late mother, who as far as I recall never successfully told a joke, once in indirect comment on something I'd said, asked, "Why don't they send donkeys to school?"  Answer: Nobody likes a wiseass.

All right--I begin in jubilation: We have a president who f*cks up, then gets it right, cleans up his mess, doesn't stonewall. Incredible.  The last one couldn't think of a single mistake he'd made (though he "regretted" that they never found any WMDs; so do thousands of grieving mothers).

So Obama's on the right path, but we're going to have to be patient: The stable is Augean.  I mean, Tom Daschle?  Jeez, does no one in that town have a decent tax accountant?

Up pipes ol' tone-deaf John Kerry with some marble-mouthed crap about how, on balance, years of public service mean more than a six-figure tax dodge.  Real clever way to teach folks that taxes aren't just some government grab, but the way we all pay for the things we all share.  

There's no ethical line between "professional" and personal. Woody Guthrie got it (at least apocryphally).  Story goes, he shows up for a gig, asks as usual for his check.  Promoter says, "But Woody, this is for a good cause."  "I don't play for bad causes," says Woody.  I bet he got his estimated taxes in on time, too.