USING THE RIGHT WORD RIGHT NOW: Panache for Puppies

(NOTE: This holiday season, forget friends and relatives and buy presents only for you. They can take care of themselves, at least those that still have a job. Books are the best presents: saucy and tame books, silly and serious books, useful and useless books, and scary and placid books. Go to www.indiebound.com for the nearest independent bookstore, slap cash on the counter, and get crazy with fat bound pages of type and adventure. Greater sales will force the publishing industry to stop wasting time staring up its Twitter and get back to making books. In these perilous times, think of yourself first and let others take a distant second or third, especially those with questionable fashion sense.)


John McPhee is said to have replied to an interviewer who asked about a picture being worth a thousand words, “Yes, but the right word is worth a thousand pictures.” So why do writers insist on using the wrong word? Corrupt usage. Words and phrases that started out meaning one thing have been corrupted by series of dumb people into meaning something else or nothing at all. Below are the most misused of the bunch. There will be more unless writers smarten up and think before whacking the keyboard.




SURREAL, SURREALISTIC, SURREALISM: Has ever a word been more misunderstood? Guillaume Apollinaire, the walking wounded of Montparnasse, coined the word “surrealism” in 1917 for the introduction printed in the theater program to Jean Cocteau’s play, PARADE. The original spelling was “sur-realism,” meaning “beyond real,” and was adopted by French artists unsatisfied with the nihilism of Dada. André Breton was the main theoretician and arbiter of surrealism as shown in his 1924 MANIFESTO OF SURREALISM:

SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express—verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner—the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.

ENCYCLOPEDIA. Philosophy: Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and all every other psychic mechanism and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life….

(André Breton, MANIFESTOES OF SURREALISM, translated by Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969)

Now you have no excuse for throwing this word around where it doesn’t belong, and also frustrate colleagues at will with your erudition. Being smarter is always a burden.


AMERICAN DREAM: The next time you read or hear the phrase “American Dream,” ask the writer or speaker for a definition. Those that do not hide behind “everyone knows” will flush red at being exposed as a semi-literate poseur. Historian James Truslow Adams laid out the dream in his book, THE EPIC OF AMERICA (Boston: Little Brown & Company, 1931):

“The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement…. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

Heady stuff, right? For further consideration, get down to that local independent bookstore and pay retail for THE AMERICAN DREAM: A SHORT HISTORY OF AN IDEA THAT SHAPED A NATION by Jim Cullen (NY: Oxford University Press, 2003).


HUMAN NATURE: Stop and think for a long time before sticking this one on the page as an explanation for why someone does something. The generalized dictionary definition says that human nature is the sum of qualities and traits shared by all humans, but what are the qualities and traits? No one knows for sure, or they refuse to let the information trickle down to the ordinary man or woman waiting for a bus.

Basic human drives are just like those belonging to our hairy forbearers—eating, copulation, safety, goofing around, and status seeking—and anything else is still debated. An individual like that bozo in the cubicle next to yours can be selfish and competitive compared to the friendly and habitually honest you. Who is showing examples of human nature, both or neither? Philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century dug deep with sharp shovels through layers of culture and social conditioning to find what was truly shared by the entire human race. They came up with fancy notions like benevolence and self-interest as being part of human nature, and later philosophers disproved these with big words in foreign languages.

For those unwilling to embrace Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or give up on the concept and pound down egg nog until the confusion goes away, get a copy of Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault’s, THE CHOMSKY-FOUCAULT DEBATE: ON HUMAN NATURE (NY: New Press, 2006) and ON HUMAN NATURE, revised edition (NY: Harvard University Press, 2004) by Edward O. Wilson.


BUY ONE, BUY FOUR

Lighten your wallet and brighten your prose with multiple copies of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, 2006). As the decade of doom comes to a close, a swell book with a nifty cover full of literate advice is good to have on hand. Plus, a portion of the cover price will go directly to the writer. This is called a royalty.


NEXT: New Fashions for the Unleashed

BOOKS MAKE A HOME MORE CROWDED: Another Collar


(NOTE: Charles Darwin will celebrate the 150th anniversary of his THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES in November. This is a worthwhile book to have and read but there is no reason to rush out and buy a copy on account of Mr. Darwin is no longer alive to enjoy his piece of the action. Many dead writers have the same problem. While they may not have taken their royalties with them, having the checks forwarded would be a nice gesture. This includes film rights.)


MAKING A HOME LIBRARY

Every home needs a library, no matter if you live in a prefab McMansion, cramped studio apartment, or dull condominium. All your stuff is a reflection of who you are: the photographs and art prints on the walls serve as reminders of where you’ve been and with whom, comfortable furniture says you like sitting around, and home entertainment systems tell how much you care about what you listen to and watch. These are dandy, but a home is not truly a home until there are shelves loaded with books.

Your library should consist of what you like. There is no “must have” list to consult. Mysteries? Line them up. The same goes for cooking and cookery, biography, history, science, novels, poetry, or reference books. Recycle the ones you will never read or have read and dislike. A home library does not have to be all-inclusive or expansive, only filled with your interests. Paperbacks can sit next to hard covers without causing any serious zoning problems. Any guest that ridicules your selection should be politely shown the door. You don’t want those people around anyway.



SHELVING MATTERS

In a world better than the abysmal wallow we currently plod through, part of high school curriculum would include building bookshelves. Students learn how to choose woods, saw, sand, countersink screws, and use a spirit level. Since this is unlikely to happen, most people purchase ready-made shelves. Particleboard is a mistake (the crap bows under any weight), so is metal, and dark woods dampen an otherwise bright room. How tall the shelves need to be depends on what you put on them. For those whose taste runs to art books, the shelves should be at least 14 inches apart and likely more. Mass-market paperbacks are 7 inches tall, and hardcover fiction and nonfiction run about 9 inches. Add another inch so there will be no cramping. The measuring tape is your friend.

Wherever the shelves are placed, make sure no direct sunlight hits them. Red book jackets will be bleached to pink in no time under the effects of full spectrum light, and green and yellow and teal also get drained of their original brightness. Sun is brutal on books of all colors. You want light? Go buy a lamp.

ORGANIZE FOR THE HECK OF IT

Save the Dewey decimal system for your next visit to the public library. This is yours and organization is all about what works for you. Should you line the books alphabetically by title or author? What works is more important than what someone else might think. For those with a heightened visual sense, try separating by color. Rimbaud scribbled out: “I invented the color of vowels!—A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green…” Use this for a start while dullards have to make do with whole words.



Those with a range of interests will want to make divisions by genre: cookery here, science fiction there, and racier stuff at the top so the kids won’t get into it until they grow tall enough or learn how to use a chair. Every book is valid so what goes first never matters, only that you can find it when you want. If you live with other people ask their opinions so you can ignore them.

HOW TO BUY BOOKS

Come on, think for a moment. The best place to buy books is at an independent bookstore. They need the help and so do the impecunious writers whose work sits in their shops. Big chain stores will need the help about two days after Earth is sucked into a giant black hole and shot across the galaxy to a new solar system. Since this is not going to happen anytime soon, check the Yellow Pages or log on to IndieBound (www.indiebound.org) for the nearest and friendliest bookstore in your neighborhood. Buy several copies of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, $13.95). Special orders will be cheerfully filled.


NEXT: Distemper of Our Times

READ LIKE AN AMAZON: Howls From the Kennel


(NOTE: Stuck for a synonym? Messed up over metaphors? Iron a shirt. The order is simple: collar, yoke, cuffs, and sleeves before front to back to front. Few pleasures outdo a well-laundered and well-pressed cotton shirt. No polyester or poly blend comes close, and linen is only good for the extra hot days. Slip on the shirt and secondary erogenous zones will screech a happy holler. This is the writing life, at its most rewarding in the private moments.)

From papyri to parchment to paper, the book has followed innovation since the word was recorded. The clumsy and expensive Kindle promises to change the book again. Walt Mossberg kept a straight face while he interviewed Jeffrey P. Bezos, chairman, president, and chief executive of Amazon.com, for the June 9, 2008 issue of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. For a man who made millions selling books online, Bezos must not read very much.


BEZOS: Over some time horizon, books will be read on electronic devices. Physical books won't completely go away, just as horses haven't completely gone away. But there is no sinecure for any technology. If you think about books, it's astonishing. It's very hard to find a technology that has remained in mostly the same form for 500 years. And anything that has stubbornly resisted improvement for 500 years is going to be hard to improve.


THE DOG: What the heck does “some time horizon” mean? As far as a sinecure for printed books, they take a lot of effort by writers, typographers, and printers. From an idea to a finished book takes two years. Much of this is spent with the writing but to drop all the parts of the process into one puddle is senseless.


BEZOS: We see [Kindle] as an effort to improve upon the book, even though it's resisted change for 500 years.

THE DOG: The book mirrors technological change. Five hundred years ago type was set one letter at a time and dabbed with ink balls. Typography since has gone through every twist and turn imaginable, from Linotype to Monotype to photocomposition to digital. Some innovations have been more successful than others. Digital type sucked when it first arrived. Typographers put their heads down and solved the problems of the new process.


BEZOS: …you have to capture the essential element of a book, which is that it disappears when you get into the flow of the story. None of us when we're reading a book think about the ink and the glue and the stitching. All that fades away, and you get into the author's universe.

THE DOG: A good book is a collaboration of writer, typographer, printer, and reader. In Beatrice Warde’s essay, “The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible,” she states, “The book typographer has the job of erecting a window between the reader inside the room and that landscape which is the author’s words.” This is done with the physical form, joined to make an engaging experience. To toss out the parts of a book is to prefer protein powder over a grilled lamb chop. What's for lunch, Jeff?


BEZOS: Sometimes big, heavy hardcover books do break you out of the flow because you get hand fatigue. Or turning pages can be loud if you have a spouse sleeping next to you. There are things about physical books that we're accustomed to but that actually aren't very good.


THE DOG: Get a gym membership. The main problem with the physical book are the twits that want to reduce it to a download commodity with no respect for the form.


BEZOS: But you also can't ever out-book the book. You need to look for a series of things that you can do with an electronic device like Kindle that you could never do with a physical book.
Some of them can be pretty simple, like dictionary lookup. I find I don't know what lots of words mean, and I used to guess because—am I really going to get up off of the sofa and go find a dictionary?


THE DOG: Reading is active, not passive. Unless the book is an academic treatise, most are edited for a ninth grade reading level so publishers don’t have to hear dumb complaints like this. Switch to network television for brain numbing.


BEZOS: Over the last 20 years, most of the tools that we humans have invented have made it easier for us to be information snackers. If one of the outcomes of Kindle and other devices like it [is] making long-form reading more frictionless so that you end up doing more of it, I think that's a good thing.


THE DOG: Do I have to make a comment on this? Information snackers have as much connection with knowledge as marmots do with knitting.


GRAMMAR GIRL GETS DOG


GRAMMAR GIRL is a Web site hosted by Mignon Fogarty, and deals with the everyday problems of putting thoughts into words so anyone, even Jeff Bezos, can understand them. Mignon has told Oprah about split infinitives and appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, and USA TODAY. On June 26, I’ll be the guest writer for her podcast on the use and nasty abuse of slang. She also has a new book coming out next month, GRAMMAR GIRL’S QUICK AND DIRTY TIPS FOR BETTER WRITING (NY: Henry Holt, $14.00). Check out GRAMMAR GIRL here.



A CLASS FOR THOSE WITH CLASS

“Book Proposals Basics for Beginners” is a one-day workshop taught by me and sponsored by Book Passage on Saturday, August 9, 2008. The event will be held from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM at 51 Tamal Vista Boulevard in Corte Madera, CA.

The book proposal is the single most important tool in the development of a book. It is a sales tool for the writer to find an agent, and through them a publisher. The proposal also provides a map for the final manuscript. Topics include query letters, writing for clarity, research, developing a platform, and working with agents. Sal Glynn is a freelance editor and writer who has edited more than 300 books for publishers on both coasts, and the writer of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH. The gig costs $95 (an outrageous bargain) and enrollment is through the Book Passage Bookstore:
51 Tamal Vista Boulevard
Corte Madera, CA 94925
(415) 927-0960
(800) 999-7909
Fax (415) 924-3838
www.bookpassage.com


NEXT: Treeing the Cat