Language Evolution

A few years ago, I was on the phone with a friend and when I wanted to wrap up the call, I said, "Well...I'll letchya go." She replied, "Have I been held captive all this time?"

Nothing snide was meant by it, just an observation of how we all phrase things. But I've tried really hard never to use that phrase again.

At about the same time, our newsroom's proofreader, a very proper man without whom the writers would all be in big trouble, said that he couldn't stand it when service workers replied,"No problem" to his "Thank you." Probably one of us less evolved in the room had said it to him. His argument was, although he put it much more eloquently at the time, if you're a service worker, then, no: It shouldn't be a problem to serve.

I was impressed by that. Didn't agree or disagree, and have never been especially offended by that phrase myself, but I've tried really hard never to use it again.

A few weeks ago, I was watching a movie in which a human resources drone flew all over the country to meet face-to-face while she fired scores of people. The reaction of the folks on the receiving end of the ax hit brutally true to life, spanning the range of those not-so-good human emotions. But what struck me was the language she used.

She sat through these horrible meetings as stony as an Easter Island monolith, and like an automaton, said, "I want you to open the packet I've placed before you." "I need you to think of this as an opportunity..."

I kept thinking to myself, why aren't these people throwing the packet at her?
"Really? You're firing me...and you want me to open the packet? Really? I want you to insert the packet someplace dark and snug."

What a sense of ... I don't know. Arrogance, entitlement and overblown authority don't really seem to cover it for me.

Unless you're that dreaded mean teacher keeping law and order in an unruly third grade classroom, there are so many better ways of conveying those messages. How about, "I'd like you to open the packet I've prepared for you"? How about, "Please think of this as an opportunity..."

I've begun listening more closely to how people phrase things to catch an underlying message, and it's interesting. No one generation or gender seem to own this imperious communication style. I think it's our language and our culture evolving, and that's pretty telling.

Believe me, whether it seems like it or not, I'm a lot more careful about what I write than how I say things. So I know I'm guilty of barking orders or brusquely giving directives, or even monosyllabic answers, no niceties. But I'd like to think that I can become more mindful of the tone I use and the words I choose when I speak.

As my mother used to say when we wanted something, "We'll see."
I'm still trying to interpret that one.
Are there any turns of phrase that caught your ear and maybe stuck in your craw lately?

Two great reads

In the past couple of months I've read two similar books, both about newspaper publishing, and both with similar themes and outcomes. You won't need to have hatched out of a newsroom to enjoy both, either.

One, Tabloid City, is by veteran newspaper man Pete Hamill. Hamill doesn't disappoint readers - his usual heart-warming story-telling is on game, and his well-developed characters are ones you invest yourself in throughout the story. Tabloid City: A Novel

The other, The Imperfectionists is by newcomer Tom Rauchman. Rauchman has worked for the Associated Press as a correspondent stationed in Rome. Compared to Hamill, however, he's a newcomer both as a journalist and a novelist. But you'd never know it. His story is every bit as enthralling as Hamill's. I wonder how such a young man could produce such a sophisticated story. It better not be his last. The Imperfectionists: A Novel (Random House Reader's Circle)

In each story, characters came to life for me; I was able to identify with each like never before: these were people I definitely knew: the solitary copy writer with enviable talent of creating headlines where I would just stare at a white screen, all while making page design look effortless; the affectations of a  adrenaline junkie foreign correspondent/stringer who is hell bent on showing how worldly he is while draining the life and resources from everyone around him; the corrections editor/copy editor who is always right. Don't even bother arguing. And you're thankful for him, believe me. The cub reporter who is really so talented you wonder why he chose journalism; the obit writer who just wants to do his job and get out of there unscathed; and the editor-in-chief who is has lead an interesting life, travelled extensively, is tough but fair, remote but kind and witty. He really is the lifeblood of the newsroom.

These characters inhabit each book with such dead-on accuracy and life that I'm already planning to happily reread both to visit them again. They're people I know.

Threaded through each novel is the newspaper itself. Hamill and Rauchman both write about their newspapers as endearing, living, breathing things. Their humble beginnings, their humming energy and their hardships make them characters in their own right.

Both authors portray the changing world of news well. Hamill in particular inserts what have to be his own views of the industry's evolution throughout his many years as a journalist. Rauchman captures a journalist's constant struggle with the job of gathering and writing the news against the business of running a newspaper.

Readers are invested enough in each story to feel for the papers as they meet their predictable but emotional fates.

Have any of you read either novel? What did you think?

Cheap Diversionary Tactics

I usually catch the last minutes of the local news and the first few minutes of the Today Show each morning before I'm out the door. So at 7:05 a.m. (8/2/11), I left hoping that NBC and Today went on to report a little more in-depth coverage of the vote than what I saw.

What I saw was a house full of self-important, self-congratulating buffoons patting themselves on the back for a job well done. The lead story - on Today, at any rate - was U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords' "surprise" appearance to cast her vote. Am I being too cynical, or does that smack of diversionary tactics to pull the viewing public away from the real meat of the story? That is, as we are all painfully aware: our national debt and our economic prospects for the next couple of years. What's going to be hacked out of the budget? How much will taxes increase anyway? And who's going to lose (as if we needed an answer to that)?

I'm not really disputing Gabby Giffords' heroics here. To get up every day and make the progress she has in the face of the extensive injuries she suffered is heroic enough. However, whether this was her idea or it was all planned by some Capitol Hill PR genius, it was a pathetic and disgusting gesture on the government's part, and it was picked up big time by the media: Bring out the invalid to melt America's heart. Maybe it'll forget that the government owes them infinitely more than cheap theatrics for their tax dollars.

They can start making it up to us by finally earning the money we pay them. Because if you think the debt crisis - the economic outlook overall - has been averted, then read this:
http://news.yahoo.com/debt-deal-set-pass-were-costs-045917154.html

One of the points of the article that I found so disturbing, yet not surprising, is that once again, we've been held hostage by Washington parasites. The article points out that because of this "very public and intense squabble in D.C., already-anemic economic growth will be weaker, the unemployment crisis will worsen, income and wealth inequality will deteriorate further and, ironically, the fiscal dynamics will be more challenging," said Mohamed El-Erian, co-chief investment officer of the international bond fund giant Pacific Investment Management Co., or PIMCO.

Another point, made by a Chinese news agency, is that when the donkey and elephant fight, the whole world feels their dispute and suffers. Whether this global suffering continues is almost immaterial compared to the fact that the U.S. - thanks once again to this "squabble" - loses more of its credibility and leadership globally.

Thanks, Washington. I knew things would get worse before they got better, but I didn't think you'd have such a heavy hand in it.