Don’t Let Your Emails Become an Endangered Species

Remember the story of the boy who cried “wolf?” There is so much competition in your inbox that some people feel the need to resort to deception to get you to keep reading their emails once you get started.

I just received a cordial invitation from a friend of a friend to be his “guest” at a dinner and discussion. At least that’s what the first paragraph said. Later on, the text got around to divulging that the event was being held to raise money for a political campaign and the price of “individual participation” is $500.

That’s a fairly elastic interpretation of the word “guest.” I wonder how much I would have had to fork over if I hadn’t held that exalted rank. The first paragraph is nothing short of misrepresentation to get me to keep reading, only to find out it was just another rubber chicken fund-raiser.

Don’t fall into that trap lest your emails be automatically thrown to the wolves.

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Writer’s Block?

I’ve often made mention of my contention that writer’s block is a myth, and that the inability to write something is because that certain something simply isn’t ready to be written yet. One of my suggestions has always been to switch projects and work on something else. There’s something else you can try. 

Riff. Jam. Improvise. Noodle on your instrument like a jazz musician. But what is my instrument, you ask? It’s not what you think. 

Computer keyboard or typewriter? No, that’s just what you use to write things down and preserve your improvisations. Liken it to a tape recorder to hold on to the gems you came up with so you don’t lose them. 

Vocabulary? No again; words are the arsenal, the supply closet, the quiver of arrows. Words are comparable to the notes that you combine in new configurations to create a brand new melody. 

Your instrument, you see, is your mind.

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What Year Is It?

Many in the news media, as well as actual human beings, seem to be unsure about how to say what year we’re in. The new millenium ushers in a new era of confusion about the most accepted way to say the year. Let’s make a rule: it’s two thousand eleven, not twenty eleven. 

The nineteen in nineteen-fifty was short for nineteen hundred. Since no one says twenty hundred, case closed. It’s two-thousand-eleven. 

And while we’re at it, let’s clear up the fact that 2011 is the first year of the second decade. If you thought 2010 was, do me a favor: count to ten. If you started with one and not zero, you agree with me. Thank you very much. 

We’re also using words the wrong way again. I mean still. Amazing and awesome should refer to things and events that are so transcendently grand that they soar the the realm of the unbelievably wonderful. Instead, they’re being used to describe a taco. What are you going to say when something truly awesome and amazing happens?

“Oh my god, aliens landed on the mall in Washington, D.C., and gave the president the cure for aging! That’s– That’s – delicious!”

Please stop. That would be awesome.

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No Radio Rants Here

After publishing my latest tongue-in-cheek rant about attitudes toward communication media through the years, it occurred to me that I had left one out. Correction: I wasn’t the one doing the ranting; I was reporting on other people’s rants. I covered books, telephones, movies, television, comic books, cell phones, and computers. The general public has complained about all of the above at one time or another as being harbingers of doom as far as our kids’ IQs are concerned. But had I missed something?

Later, I was worried that I had left out radio. But of all the comments I received about the article, no one called me on it. Then after a moment’s reflection, I realized why. Radio is benign.

Vociferous wailings about the other media rotting our children’s gray matter abound, but how much have you heard about radio? Sure, when rock and roll made its debut in the early 50s, many parents complained that it was the Devil’s music, among other negative qualities. But radio was just the conduit, and nobody seemed ready to shoot that messenger. If you’re in a restaurant and the soup you ordered tastes like the contents of the grease trap, you don’t blame the bowl.

TV and movies were inseparably identified with their content, but radio got a pass. Because at the same time your Philco was polluting the airwaves with ear splitting rock ‘n roll, it was also bringing you wholesome big-band music along with such all-American fare as Arthur Godfrey and Art Linkletter. It’s an attitudinal impossibility to be angry at the box that brings you both “Jailhouse Rock” and “Kids Say The Darndest Things.”

Radio has its issues, but most people will tell you it’s in pretty good shape. Except for AM talk radio. But that’s another rant.

 

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White Sneakers

All I wanted to say was this: No matter how dirty you get a pair of white sneakers, they still look like white sneakers.

It was going to be one of those inconsequential little Facebook status updates. You business people know what I mean; just a little blurt to keep your name out there. But when I noticed its ambiguity, I figured I should elaborate.

Phrased the way it is now, it can be taken two ways. You can read it with pride: No matter how dirty you get a pair of white sneakers, by golly, they still look like white sneakers. Or you can read it with irritated resignation: No matter how dirty you get a pair of white sneakers, dammit, they still look like white sneakers.

For the record, I don’t care for white sneakers. The black ones look even geekier, but the store didn’t have the usual off-off-white Rockports I usually buy. I’m a guy, so I don’t shop, I buy. And I needed new walking shoes right then! Now you know– I have the patience of a housefly after a hit of Red Bull.

Look at the sentence again. If I say it out loud, the by-golly/dammit qualifiers are unnecessary. I can make my attitude obvious with my tone of voice and facial expression. Not in writing; that’s why writing takes more effort than speaking.

Whether it’s articles or e-mails, you have no audience in front of you to see how your attitude is manifested. You need to augment your words with qualifiers to make your feelings known. And I’m not talking about emoticons. They have no place in serious writing or business communication. They don’t make you seem communicative; they just make you seem lazy.

So make the extra effort. It’s fairly easy to get your meaning across. Getting your attitude across takes a little more work.

By golly.

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Retreat? Never!

As you probably know, I see a lot of animals from my patio. Quite often, they’re even on my patio. Deer, squirrels, groundhogs, turkeys– you name it. It’s a wildlife superhighway out there. But sometimes the wildlife overlaps the parts of my life that aren’t so wild.

As president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the National Speakers Association, I invited the Board of Directors to my house for the annual retreat. Lately, many word-conscious types are calling them “advances,” perhaps to dispel negative associations. But I decided not to confuse the issue.

Running from 10:00 am to mid-afternoon, the meeting started on the patio while it was still cool enough to be comfortable. I had my laptop set up for a connection with our “guest speaker,” as she was billed on the agenda. Last year during his retreat, our past president, Jeff Tobe, arranged for a conference call with incoming national president Phillip van Hooser on his iPhone. That was a great way to kick things off and set the mood.

In a burst of uncharacteristically geeky one-upmanship, I asked Kristin Arnold, this year’s national president, to connect to us via Skype, so we could have video as well as audio. Also uncharacteristically, the call actually worked. Quite often, when I attempt such feats of technological derring-do, something goes horribly awry. Not this time; we had a fine chat. Kristin could see most of us (I think I was out of frame) and we could see and hear her. We talked about items such as National’s relationship to our chapter and various other topics.

The only minor hitch was an avian interruption. A crow was cawing up in the trees as Kristin was talking. She stopped and said, “Is that a bird or something?” Apparently, my audio signal was actually too clear. Hell, we were lucky the blue jays weren’t congregating. We would have had to move inside. We did that anyway after we said goodbye to Kristin because it was lunchtime and it was getting August hot and humid out there.

It’s not that I’m a total novice at using Skype. I’ve had such video calls with friends in California and North Carolina, with fair success. The quality of the video is sometimes sketchy for varying technical reasons, such as camera quality or the battery dying (which happened to my friend in NC). But to me, it’s that old saw about comparing a new technology to a dog dancing on its hind legs: It’s not that we’re expecting him to do it well; we’re amazed that he can do it at all.

Inside during the second half of the meeting, there was another wildlife break as we all looked out at a black squirrel trying to open one of the feed bins on the patio. Some of my guests had never seen a squirrel that color.

I’m going to suggest to Karen,  my president-elect, that she try to outdo me next year and shoot for a holographic projection. The technology? That’ll be her problem.

 I know a crow she can use for practice.

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In Defense of Big Words

I’m a long-time fan of communicating clearly and concisely and not using a ten-dollar word when the dime version will do. And yet sometimes it’s necessary to call up the big guns for just the reasons I mentioned: clarity and conciseness.

A recent addition to the lexicon of over-used and over-mocked words is paradigm. True, many blowhards trot it out in order to come off as being cool and with it without knowing its real meaning. Or at least having only a hazy concept of same. A paradigm is a pattern that all things in a given category match. In learning a foreign language for instance, the conjugation of one regular verb is the same for all other regular verbs. (You want irregular verbs, look them up.)

But even when you use the word properly, a few mavens-in-waiting will pounce on you and scold you for being pretentious. Paradigm means a pattern or model. Folks might ask you, “Then why not just say pattern or model?”

Here’s your answer: Because, chucklehead (optional), model can refer to a scaled down replica of a structure or scene, a human being showing off the latest clothing designs, a version of a car, and many other meanings. Pattern can refer to a series of human behaviors, instructions to make a dress, a path for an aircraft to follow, and many other meanings.

Paradigm means just the one thing. Be bold: Use it and any other word like it if you want to be precise.

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To Be Continued. Phooey!

You can tell when the story on a TV show is going to be continued in the next episode because you’re looking at your watch and it’s getting close to the top of the hour and you just know they can’t tie up all the loose ends in the little time that’s left. But at least you only have to wait a week. Unless they pull that stunt in the season finale.

But now two of my favorite writers are doing it in novel-length books. Connie Willis is an excellent science fiction author who writes with a masterful mix of humor and plotting and does some stellar things with the concept of time travel. Lee Child writes the series of unputdownable Jack Reacher mystery/ adventure novels about a former MP who roams the country righting wrongs without the benefit of a car or a suitcase.

This concept violates the main rule of fiction, and it’s a prime motivation for reading it: the problem is resolved. We like to read fiction because, unlike real life, the problems in the story don’t drag on interminably but are resolved by the time you reach the last page. The formula is so simple I feel I’m insulting your intelligence by saying it, but here goes: At the beginning of the story, a hero we can root for gets her/himself in a pickle, has a series of setbacks and escalating complications throughout, and at the end, we find out how and if s/he gets out of it. Period. End of fiction writing seminar.

And that’s the way it should be. Or am I being a curmudgeon again?

(Read the expanded, article-length version of this post in the Legacy Road Communique archives. Click on the archive link.)

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The Oxford Comma

This particular punctuation mark might seem a little pretentious sporting such an academic name. But using it correctly can eliminate confusion. Here is a great example of the reason you should use the Oxford comma, sometimes known as the serial comma. It appeared in the Sunday, January 11, 2009, edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the editorial page. We’ll get to it in a minute.

In a series of three or more items separated by commas, the Oxford comma is the comma that separates the final two items and comes just before the conjunction. “Go to the store and get eggs, bread, milk, and celery.” Some style manuals advocate omitting this comma. That would not be a problem in the previous sentence, but it some cases,  the omission creates ambiguity or momentary confusion. “My favorite foods are steak, pizza, macaroni and cheese and crackers.”

See if you can spot the problem in the following sentence: “A recent Post-Gazette review of Allegheny County restaurant inspections turned up some pretty disgusting conditions — dead roaches on the floor, live ones scurrying across steam tables, rodent droppings and foods of all sorts being kept at unsafe temperatures.” (italics mine)

The end of that sentence had me wondering just what the safe temperature for rodent droppings might be.

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