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Better English 41
Happy New Year
February 4, 2010
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THINGS DON'T CHANGE
-- WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO BOOKS?
-- PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD
-- NOT PLEASED TO HEAR
-- GET INVOLVED, WRITE!

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche loved the idea of eternal recurrence, and two of my favorite writers, Ralph Ellison and Jorge Borges, played with the concept that things happen over and over, repeating themselves as if running in a circle.

I am here to tell you at the beginning of a new decade that we are making the same mistakes with language that we made at the end of the last.

I'm also apologizing for the long delay since the last newsletter. But too much to do and too little time to do it in is a recurring nemesis.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO BOOKS?
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 All of us who communicate are wondering what the future will bring. What will the new world of reading look like?

Reading electronically has exploded, and publishers are in as much turmoil about the changes as readers who can't decide between a Kindle or Sony reader.

The very best news for diehards who will never touch an electronic reader comes from my informant, Sid Offit in Manhattan.

He attended one of those confabs where the publishing affairs of state are discussed.

One statistic from the New York Public Library's research showed that it had 40 million visitors last year. Most were from families whose annual household incomes were less than $50 thousand.

So reading and touching books are not dead practices in metropolitan New York. You should keep writing.


PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD
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 If you are applying for anything--in these days most frequently a job--it's definitely the time to polish off every word, sentence, and paragraph.

So a freelance editor writes, looking for work. Here is her stiff sentence that prompted me not to respond:

"If you would like to assess my editorial ability in consideration of an arrangement, it would be my pleasure to oblige."

I imagined her adding formal phrases to all of our comic novels.

NOT PLEASED TO HEAR
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 Here is the news release from Jan 7: "The heirs of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy are pleased to announce that they have reached a Settlement Agreement with the Trustees of The Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Foundation resolving their ownership claim to the painting The Absinthe Drinker (Angel Fernandez de Soto) (1903) by Pablo Picasso."

Is this a news release or an invitation to a party? "Pleased to announce?"

I can assure you that most news editors will wonder when writers like this will at least learn the conventions of the press release.

Here is a professional opening sentence in a February 3, 2010 release: "Gustav Klimt's Kirche in Cassone (Church in Cassone) went for $45.4 million in an auction in London on Wednesday, and part of the proceeds are to go to the Montreal heir to the Nazi-looted work."

They could have been pleased to announce.

Remember the journalistic five Ws? Who, What, Where, Why, When?


GET INVOLVED, WRITE!
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 Stop complaining to your neighbors and relatives and write!

Write to your local and national officials. Here are some sources for names and addresses:
To write your congressperson, click here and put in your nine-digit Zip code: To contact your senator, click here and enter your state in the upper right hand corner.

Like every letter, these have conventions too. In the next issue, I'll offer some tips about those conventions. For starters, being positive is better than ranting and raving.

Sincerely,
Barry Beckham


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