by: Drew Olanoff
I can’t imagine someone being able to watch every keystroke as I write a post like this, but author Silvia Hartmann is writing a novel and is welcoming you to watch her progress. Live and in real-time.
Using a public Google Document, Hartmann is typing away on “The Dragon Lords,” and the whole idea absolutely fascinates me. It’s unlikely that I’ll sit at my computer and watch her type, but I’ll probably check in from time to time on how she’s doing.
Here’s what the Google Enterprise team had to say about it:
"Fantasy author Silvia Hartmann is reinventing the editorial process by letting her readers follow along as she drafts her new novel – The Dragon Lords – in a public Google document. Hartmann started writing last week, and has already drafted 20 chapters.
Read the story so far and follow along to find out how it ends: http://goo.gl/Bb6bF"
from: TechCrunch
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Monday, October 1, 2012
No sex please, we're American – Banned Books Week turns 30
Fifty Shades of Grey joins list of classics including Catcher in the Rye which have been challenged in schools and libraries
by: Alison Flood
As America's annual celebration of the right to read prepares to kick off on Sunday, EL James's erotic sensation Fifty Shades of Grey joins a list of classics including Catcher in the Rye and Fahrenheit 451 which have been challenged in libraries and schools.
Banned Books Week, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, will be marked with displays of censored literature in thousands of libraries and bookshops across the US from 30 September. There will be a "virtual read-out", where readers and authors name their favourite censored titles, a "50 Shades of Banned" reading of erotic literature in Manhattan, courtesy of the National Coalition Against Censorship and the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund, and the American Library Association has named a series of titles challenged or censored over the past 30 years, from Catcher in the Rye to the Harry Potter series.
One writer, Corey Michael Dalton, is taking his celebration of banned literature to the extreme, and will be spending the week in the window of Indianapolis's Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. "It's about bringing attention to Banned Books Week, which has been observed [in] the last week of September every year since 1982," he told the library. "Many people are surprised to learn that books are still actively being challenged and/or banned in the US, but it's true. In 2011, for example, To Kill a Mockingbird, Brave New World, and The Hunger Games trilogy were all in the list of top 10 most challenged books."
The American Library Association received 326 reports of attempts to remove books from shelves last year. This year has been no quieter, with parent protests in Tennessee leading to a ban of John Green's award-winning novel Looking for Alaska because it "contained an awkward sexual encounter between the teenage protagonists", and Amy Timberlake's acclaimed picture book The Dirty Cowboy drawing protests in Pennsylvania for including an image of the cowboy taking a bath. "The parents' complaint rested on the idea that: 'Children may come to the conclusion that looking at nudity is OK, and therefore pornography is OK'," said the National Coalition Against Censorship at the time. "When we hear individuals call drawings of a partially nude bather 'obscene' and 'pornographic', it becomes clear that the instinct to censor is alive and well in this country."
Author and librarian James Klise, meanwhile, has spoken out about the withdrawal of his invitation to speak at a Kansas library – ironically enough during Banned Books Week itself. "I received a second email from the librarian. She hated to say it, but I probably was not a good fit for their event after all. She explained that she works in a very conservative community," Klise wrote in the Chicago Tribune. "After some consideration, she and her principal decided that my first young-adult novel, called Love Drugged, about a closeted gay teen, might be too edgy for some parents there."
Klise said the withdrawal of his invitation would make sure the Banned Books Week celebration at his Chicago library would be "less light-hearted" than it has been in the past. "Most people truly do believe in the freedom to read. Diversity and respecting individuality are standard practice here. Maybe that's what compelled me to write the essay for the Tribune – to convey my surprise and sadness at the experience with the Kansas school, and to acknowledge how good I have it in Chicago," he told the Guardian. "I guess I've always assumed that my book gets less exposure in conservative parts of the country. I should add that the Kansas librarian was extremely torn about rescinding the invitation. She wrote to me that she was sick to her stomach about it, and I empathise with her predicament. I suspect it happens all the time."
Moore's Neonomicon, meanwhile, was challenged over its sexual content when a teenager borrowed it from the library, and Fifty Shades of Grey was briefly banned from some Florida libraries until protests prompted a rethink.
Joan Bertin, executive director of National Coalition Against Censorship, said it was "business as usual" this year. "Picture books for little kids have been challenged because of partial nudity (The Dirty Cowboy) and an allusion to families with same-sex parents (The Family Book). At the other end of the spectrum we're still seeing challenges to books for older teens that are being taught in advanced literature classes (Bastard Out of Carolina). On the more popular side of the YA genre, we saw renewed challenges against books like Looking For Alaska and Feed," she said. "And there are always a few challenges to adult literature in public libraries because kids might see it (Neonomicon – written by UK comics legend Alan Moore) or because of sexual content (Fifty Shades of Grey)."
Bertin also pointed to the closure of the Mexican American studies programme in high schools in Tucson, Arizona. "The wholesale removal of hundreds of books used in the programme was censorship on a massive scale that is rarely seen," she said, going on to express concerns about a growing movement to give age-ratings to children's books.
"Young adult books have been coming under attack because of their 'dark' subject matter and use of profanity, and these kinds of criticisms are spawning proposals to 'rate' books, the way movies and video games are rated," she said. "We're strongly opposed to book ratings for many reasons. Books will be rated not because of their literary, educational or entertainment value, but because they contain some profanity, sexual scenes, violence, drug or alcohol use, or just because the characters are 'bad role models'. Ratings obscure the value of literature and inevitably lead to censorship."
Klise said the battle against censorship was just as important as it has always been. "To fight censorship is to acknowledge how vitally important the freedom to read is," he said. "Isn't the ability to choose what we read essential to discovering who we truly are?"
The top 10 most frequently challenged books of 2011
1) ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle – offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
2) The Colour of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa – nudity, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
3) The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins – anti-ethnic, anti-family, insensitivity, offensive language, occult/satanic, violence
4) My Mom's Having A Baby! A Kid's Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler – nudity, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
5) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie – offensive language, racism, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
6) Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor – nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint
7) Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley – insensitivity, nudity, racism, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
8) What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones – nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit
9) Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar – drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit
10) To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee – offensive language, racism
from: Guardian
by: Alison Flood
As America's annual celebration of the right to read prepares to kick off on Sunday, EL James's erotic sensation Fifty Shades of Grey joins a list of classics including Catcher in the Rye and Fahrenheit 451 which have been challenged in libraries and schools.
Banned Books Week, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, will be marked with displays of censored literature in thousands of libraries and bookshops across the US from 30 September. There will be a "virtual read-out", where readers and authors name their favourite censored titles, a "50 Shades of Banned" reading of erotic literature in Manhattan, courtesy of the National Coalition Against Censorship and the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund, and the American Library Association has named a series of titles challenged or censored over the past 30 years, from Catcher in the Rye to the Harry Potter series.
One writer, Corey Michael Dalton, is taking his celebration of banned literature to the extreme, and will be spending the week in the window of Indianapolis's Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. "It's about bringing attention to Banned Books Week, which has been observed [in] the last week of September every year since 1982," he told the library. "Many people are surprised to learn that books are still actively being challenged and/or banned in the US, but it's true. In 2011, for example, To Kill a Mockingbird, Brave New World, and The Hunger Games trilogy were all in the list of top 10 most challenged books."
The American Library Association received 326 reports of attempts to remove books from shelves last year. This year has been no quieter, with parent protests in Tennessee leading to a ban of John Green's award-winning novel Looking for Alaska because it "contained an awkward sexual encounter between the teenage protagonists", and Amy Timberlake's acclaimed picture book The Dirty Cowboy drawing protests in Pennsylvania for including an image of the cowboy taking a bath. "The parents' complaint rested on the idea that: 'Children may come to the conclusion that looking at nudity is OK, and therefore pornography is OK'," said the National Coalition Against Censorship at the time. "When we hear individuals call drawings of a partially nude bather 'obscene' and 'pornographic', it becomes clear that the instinct to censor is alive and well in this country."
Author and librarian James Klise, meanwhile, has spoken out about the withdrawal of his invitation to speak at a Kansas library – ironically enough during Banned Books Week itself. "I received a second email from the librarian. She hated to say it, but I probably was not a good fit for their event after all. She explained that she works in a very conservative community," Klise wrote in the Chicago Tribune. "After some consideration, she and her principal decided that my first young-adult novel, called Love Drugged, about a closeted gay teen, might be too edgy for some parents there."
Klise said the withdrawal of his invitation would make sure the Banned Books Week celebration at his Chicago library would be "less light-hearted" than it has been in the past. "Most people truly do believe in the freedom to read. Diversity and respecting individuality are standard practice here. Maybe that's what compelled me to write the essay for the Tribune – to convey my surprise and sadness at the experience with the Kansas school, and to acknowledge how good I have it in Chicago," he told the Guardian. "I guess I've always assumed that my book gets less exposure in conservative parts of the country. I should add that the Kansas librarian was extremely torn about rescinding the invitation. She wrote to me that she was sick to her stomach about it, and I empathise with her predicament. I suspect it happens all the time."
Moore's Neonomicon, meanwhile, was challenged over its sexual content when a teenager borrowed it from the library, and Fifty Shades of Grey was briefly banned from some Florida libraries until protests prompted a rethink.
Joan Bertin, executive director of National Coalition Against Censorship, said it was "business as usual" this year. "Picture books for little kids have been challenged because of partial nudity (The Dirty Cowboy) and an allusion to families with same-sex parents (The Family Book). At the other end of the spectrum we're still seeing challenges to books for older teens that are being taught in advanced literature classes (Bastard Out of Carolina). On the more popular side of the YA genre, we saw renewed challenges against books like Looking For Alaska and Feed," she said. "And there are always a few challenges to adult literature in public libraries because kids might see it (Neonomicon – written by UK comics legend Alan Moore) or because of sexual content (Fifty Shades of Grey)."
Bertin also pointed to the closure of the Mexican American studies programme in high schools in Tucson, Arizona. "The wholesale removal of hundreds of books used in the programme was censorship on a massive scale that is rarely seen," she said, going on to express concerns about a growing movement to give age-ratings to children's books.
"Young adult books have been coming under attack because of their 'dark' subject matter and use of profanity, and these kinds of criticisms are spawning proposals to 'rate' books, the way movies and video games are rated," she said. "We're strongly opposed to book ratings for many reasons. Books will be rated not because of their literary, educational or entertainment value, but because they contain some profanity, sexual scenes, violence, drug or alcohol use, or just because the characters are 'bad role models'. Ratings obscure the value of literature and inevitably lead to censorship."
Klise said the battle against censorship was just as important as it has always been. "To fight censorship is to acknowledge how vitally important the freedom to read is," he said. "Isn't the ability to choose what we read essential to discovering who we truly are?"
The top 10 most frequently challenged books of 2011
1) ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle – offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
2) The Colour of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa – nudity, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
3) The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins – anti-ethnic, anti-family, insensitivity, offensive language, occult/satanic, violence
4) My Mom's Having A Baby! A Kid's Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler – nudity, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
5) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie – offensive language, racism, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
6) Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor – nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint
7) Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley – insensitivity, nudity, racism, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
8) What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones – nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit
9) Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar – drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit
10) To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee – offensive language, racism
from: Guardian
Friday, September 28, 2012
Penguin sues authors over 'failing to deliver books'
Prozac Nation author Elizabeth Wurtzel among a dozen writers being taking to court to recoup advances for books that the publisher says didn't materialise
by: Alison Flood
Prozac Nation author Elizabeth Wurtzel is one of 12 writers being sued by the publisher Penguin in a New York court for failing to deliver books they were signed up to write.
The Smoking Gun, the investigative American website that unveiled James Frey as a liar in 2006, has found that Penguin filed lawsuits against five authors who have not delivered books for which they were paid significant advances. As well as Wurtzel, the blogger Ana Marie Cox is being asked to return her $81,250 advance (and at least $50,000 in interest) for not writing a "humorous examination of the next generation of political activists", signed in 2006, and Herman Rosenblat, a Holocaust survivor whose story of how he met his wife turned out to be a fabrication, is being chased for a $30,000 advance (and at least $10,000 in interest).
The Wurtzel lawsuit makes clear that the bestselling author signed a $100,000 deal in 2003 to write "a book for teenagers to help them cope with depression", of approximately 250 pages, by 2004. She received a $33,300 advance, with the rest of the money to follow on delivery and publication. But "despite repeated and frequent demand by Plaintiff … Defendant has refused or failed to repay the advance and remains indebted to Plaintiff in the amount of $33,000", writes Penguin in its lawsuit. The publisher has now taken to the courts to recoup the $33,000 from Wurtzel, "as well as interest of not less than $7,500". "[Wurtzel is] in possession of the sum of $33,000 that is the rightful property of Plaintiff," writes Penguin. "As a result, [she has] been unjustly enriched by [her] activities and Plaintiffs have suffered a detriment."
Other authors being sued by Penguin include New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead, from whom Penguin wants $20,000 and at least $2,000 in interest for failing to deliver "a collection of the author's journalism", and "hip-hop minister" Conrad Tillard, who signed a deal to write about his "epic journey from the Ivy League to the Nation of Islam". Penguin is suing Tillard for around $38,000.
Penguin is also suing seven other authors, as revealed by Edward Champion and confirmed in the New York Supreme Court's records library, including Bob Morris for a $20,000 advance and interest of not less than $4,000, for not handing in "a narrative about fishing lures and their history
A spokesperson for Penguin said: "Penguin regrets that it had to initiate litigation in these cases, and it did so reluctantly, only after its repeated attempts at amicable resolutions were ignored."
But the outcome of the case will depend on what, if anything, the authors did deliver, and major American literary agent Robert Gottlieb called the legal action "wrong-headed".
"Authors beware. Books are rejected for reasons other than editorially, and publishers then want their money back," he wrote in a comment posted on the Smoking Gun. "Publishers want to reject manuscripts for any reason after an author has put time and effort into writing them all the while paying their bills. Another reason to have strong representation. If Penguin did this to one of Trident's authors we could cut them out of all our submissions."
• This article has been amended to add a link to Edward Champion's Reluctant Habits website
from: Guardian
by: Alison Flood
Prozac Nation author Elizabeth Wurtzel is one of 12 writers being sued by the publisher Penguin in a New York court for failing to deliver books they were signed up to write.
The Smoking Gun, the investigative American website that unveiled James Frey as a liar in 2006, has found that Penguin filed lawsuits against five authors who have not delivered books for which they were paid significant advances. As well as Wurtzel, the blogger Ana Marie Cox is being asked to return her $81,250 advance (and at least $50,000 in interest) for not writing a "humorous examination of the next generation of political activists", signed in 2006, and Herman Rosenblat, a Holocaust survivor whose story of how he met his wife turned out to be a fabrication, is being chased for a $30,000 advance (and at least $10,000 in interest).
The Wurtzel lawsuit makes clear that the bestselling author signed a $100,000 deal in 2003 to write "a book for teenagers to help them cope with depression", of approximately 250 pages, by 2004. She received a $33,300 advance, with the rest of the money to follow on delivery and publication. But "despite repeated and frequent demand by Plaintiff … Defendant has refused or failed to repay the advance and remains indebted to Plaintiff in the amount of $33,000", writes Penguin in its lawsuit. The publisher has now taken to the courts to recoup the $33,000 from Wurtzel, "as well as interest of not less than $7,500". "[Wurtzel is] in possession of the sum of $33,000 that is the rightful property of Plaintiff," writes Penguin. "As a result, [she has] been unjustly enriched by [her] activities and Plaintiffs have suffered a detriment."
Other authors being sued by Penguin include New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead, from whom Penguin wants $20,000 and at least $2,000 in interest for failing to deliver "a collection of the author's journalism", and "hip-hop minister" Conrad Tillard, who signed a deal to write about his "epic journey from the Ivy League to the Nation of Islam". Penguin is suing Tillard for around $38,000.
Penguin is also suing seven other authors, as revealed by Edward Champion and confirmed in the New York Supreme Court's records library, including Bob Morris for a $20,000 advance and interest of not less than $4,000, for not handing in "a narrative about fishing lures and their history
A spokesperson for Penguin said: "Penguin regrets that it had to initiate litigation in these cases, and it did so reluctantly, only after its repeated attempts at amicable resolutions were ignored."
But the outcome of the case will depend on what, if anything, the authors did deliver, and major American literary agent Robert Gottlieb called the legal action "wrong-headed".
"Authors beware. Books are rejected for reasons other than editorially, and publishers then want their money back," he wrote in a comment posted on the Smoking Gun. "Publishers want to reject manuscripts for any reason after an author has put time and effort into writing them all the while paying their bills. Another reason to have strong representation. If Penguin did this to one of Trident's authors we could cut them out of all our submissions."
• This article has been amended to add a link to Edward Champion's Reluctant Habits website
from: Guardian
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Banished Words
Is slang the natural evolution of language, or just a ginormous trickeration of all that is sensible?
by: Jerry DeNuccio
As it has every year since 1976, Lake Superior State University has released its latest “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse, and General Uselessness.” The annual list, the impish brainchild of LSSU’s Public Relations Office, contains the twelve most nominated words among the thousands sent mostly by folks from the United States and Canada. The 2012 list of unfriended words includes the following: amazing (the most nominated), baby bump (a close second), shared sacrifice, occupy, blowback, man cave, the new normal, pet parent, win the future, trickeration, ginormous, and thank you in advance.
Of more interest than the list, however, are the comments that accompany the nominations, for they reveal a rather flinty linguistic conservatism, a curmudgeonly sense that words have gone wild, have wrinkled proper discourse beyond the smoothing ministrations of even a steam press. Like beleaguering lexical Visigoths, the comments suggest, the nominated words have battered down the gate and spread their rampaging, disarray within the sacrosanct wall of the language community.
One large group of comments asserts that overuse, especially by celebrity culture, has led to a degradation or even possible loss of the word’s original meaning and has usurped a simpler and better word. These commenters see overuse as a kind of lactic acid buildup leading to meaning muscle fatigue. They appear to assume a meaning checkpoint beyond which a word should not stray, lest it wander into a Claymore-filled semantic field. Martha Stewart is particularly pilloried for overusing “amazing.” “Every talk show uses this word at least two times every five minutes,” writes one commenter. “Hair is not ‘amazing.’ Shoes are not ‘amazing’ . . . I saw Martha Stewart use the word ‘amazing’ six times in the first five minutes of her television show.” Writes another, “I blame Martha Stewart because to her, EVERYTHING is amazing.” Perhaps we now know one reason Hallmark Channel’s cancelling Stewart’s show, due to its paltry average of 225,000 viewers. And lest we think such criticism is gender exclusive, another commenter notes “Anderson Cooper used it three times recently in the opening 45 second of his program.”
Other indictments of celebrity culture include “baby bump” (“I’m tired of a pregnancy being reduced to a celebrity accessory”), “the new normal” (“Often hosts on TV news channels use the phrase shortly before introducing some self-help guru who gives glib advice to the unemployed and other people having financial difficulties”), and “man cave” (Overused by television home design and home buying shows” and “has trickled down to sitcoms and commercials”). We adore our celebrities. We despise our celebrities because we despise ourselves for adoring them. Do we contradict ourselves? Well, that’s OK; we’re large; we contain multitudes.
Other commenters note that overuse has diluted what they take to be the word’s true signification. For “amazing”: “People use ‘amazing’ for anything that is nice or heartwarming. In other words, for things that are not amazing.” “There are any number of adjectives that are far more descriptive.” “The word which once aptly described the process of birth is now used to describe such trivial things as toast, or the color of a shirt.” For “baby bump”: “Why can’t we use the old tried-and-true ‘pregnant?’ For “occupy”: “It has been overused and abused even to promote Black Friday shopping.” For “blowback”: “the word ‘reaction’ would have been more than sufficient.” For “trickeration”: “What’s wrong with ‘trick’ or ‘trickery?’” For “ginormous”: “This word is just a made-up combination of two words. Either word is sufficient.”
Alas, language changes whether we want it to or not. They have to: things change, we change, and language changes so we can talk about it all. As University of Illinois linguist Denis Baron says, “Like all living languages, English is always changing: new words are coined and old ones are modified or discarded, as we scramble to keep up with the human imagination and an ever-changing world.” And that means words broaden and narrow their meanings, or we metaphorically extend words ready at hand. “Holy Day” became “holiday;” “cool” once referred to a specific style of jazz rather than a general expression of approval. “Meat” once indicated any kind of food, “deer” any kind of animal, “vulgar” once meant ordinary, “girl” any young person. We “surf” the Internet, likely using a “mouse” to do so and hoping to experience no “bugs” or “viruses” or “worms.” Language is irrepressibly mutable, gloriously so, I think. The only immutable languages are dead languages.
And “trickeration”? You can find it in the Oxford English Dictionary, which records it as part of African American Vernacular English, first used in 1940. Langston Hughes’s Montage of a Dream Deferred contains the lines, "I believe my old lady's pregnant again! Fate must have some kind of trickeration to populate the cullud nation.” And “ginormous?” It’s included in the 2007 update of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and was first used in 1948 in a British dictionary of military slang. And “blowback?” Sure, it means “reaction,” but that meaning has been extended to include effects and practices in such areas as forensics, jurisprudence, helicopter rotors and smoking marijuana — as well as being used as the title of three books, a film, and a role-playing game. And “baby bump?” Could it not be an attempt to make “pregnant,” which has no gradations to denote more or less, a gradable term meaning “just a little bit pregnant”? We see such an attempt when folks say “very pregnant” to indicate a late, quite noticeable stage.
The fact is that words are always prone to vandalism, to being pilfered from their secure semantic niches and made the possession of others, to serve their own particular purposes. And amid this linguistic leveraging, it’s unlikely that whatever prototypical meaning a word has will be lost. After all, we all know, and will continue to know, what “pregnant” means, even if we do use such phrases as “a pregnant pause,” or “a pregnant question” or describe a thundercloud “pregnant with rain.” And we will continue to find it amazing.
Many of the comments on the banished twelve centered on their sound, specifically, the disagreeable sensation the word provoked. Banish “amazing,” one commenter said, “to stop my head from exploding,” while another claimed it made her “teeth grate” and her “hackles rise” and “annoyed” her dog to boot. “Baby bump “makes pregnancy sound like some fun and in-style thing to do.” “Pet parent” is “cloying” and “capable of raising my blood sugar,” “trickeration” “sounds unintelligent,” “ginormous” “makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck every time I hear it” and “just sounds ridiculous,” “the new normal” fosters “cynicism about the ability of government to improve people’s lives,” and the overuse of “occupy” is not “palatable.”
Linguists will tell us that words are simply strings of sounds, and that those sounds in no way determine the words’ legitimacy. An opera in Italian is not better than one in German because you dislike the supposedly “harsh,” guttural, deep-in-the-throat sound of German. Being put off by the soundscape of a language is a matter of taste, a subjective experience of its words, not an objective fact about them. The bickering such judgments foster leads nowhere, for every person’s experience is, finally, true. Still, it is interesting that we do more than see and hear words; we feel them. Language is embodied, not just a baked-in set of abstract principles. Words have physical impact, a texture, a sensation. They are visceral, and perhaps this helps explain linguistic conservatism: any change is felt, not simply noted.
But, as Columbia University linguists John McWhorter maintains, language is “disheveled,” logically untidy and convoluted enough to send an efficiency expert scrambling for the exit. According to McWhorter, language conservatives are text bound; they cleave to the change-resistant written word and view deviations from it as a ginormous trickeration toward language traditions they cherish and, therefore, wish to preserve. For journalist and author Robert Lane Greene, such “aggrieved conservatism” is blowback against a change of style they feel should go out of style. But, as Greene notes, “Yesterday’s abomination is today’s rule.” As the life of any language reveals, language conservatism is a position cannot be long occupied, is thankless in advance, and will not win the future. Language change is the old normal. The spoken word always has and always will amble blithely away from its written tradition, with scarcely a backward glance.
***Jerry DeNuccio is a professor of English at Graceland University.***
from: The Smart Set
by: Jerry DeNuccio
As it has every year since 1976, Lake Superior State University has released its latest “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse, and General Uselessness.” The annual list, the impish brainchild of LSSU’s Public Relations Office, contains the twelve most nominated words among the thousands sent mostly by folks from the United States and Canada. The 2012 list of unfriended words includes the following: amazing (the most nominated), baby bump (a close second), shared sacrifice, occupy, blowback, man cave, the new normal, pet parent, win the future, trickeration, ginormous, and thank you in advance.
Of more interest than the list, however, are the comments that accompany the nominations, for they reveal a rather flinty linguistic conservatism, a curmudgeonly sense that words have gone wild, have wrinkled proper discourse beyond the smoothing ministrations of even a steam press. Like beleaguering lexical Visigoths, the comments suggest, the nominated words have battered down the gate and spread their rampaging, disarray within the sacrosanct wall of the language community.
One large group of comments asserts that overuse, especially by celebrity culture, has led to a degradation or even possible loss of the word’s original meaning and has usurped a simpler and better word. These commenters see overuse as a kind of lactic acid buildup leading to meaning muscle fatigue. They appear to assume a meaning checkpoint beyond which a word should not stray, lest it wander into a Claymore-filled semantic field. Martha Stewart is particularly pilloried for overusing “amazing.” “Every talk show uses this word at least two times every five minutes,” writes one commenter. “Hair is not ‘amazing.’ Shoes are not ‘amazing’ . . . I saw Martha Stewart use the word ‘amazing’ six times in the first five minutes of her television show.” Writes another, “I blame Martha Stewart because to her, EVERYTHING is amazing.” Perhaps we now know one reason Hallmark Channel’s cancelling Stewart’s show, due to its paltry average of 225,000 viewers. And lest we think such criticism is gender exclusive, another commenter notes “Anderson Cooper used it three times recently in the opening 45 second of his program.”
Other indictments of celebrity culture include “baby bump” (“I’m tired of a pregnancy being reduced to a celebrity accessory”), “the new normal” (“Often hosts on TV news channels use the phrase shortly before introducing some self-help guru who gives glib advice to the unemployed and other people having financial difficulties”), and “man cave” (Overused by television home design and home buying shows” and “has trickled down to sitcoms and commercials”). We adore our celebrities. We despise our celebrities because we despise ourselves for adoring them. Do we contradict ourselves? Well, that’s OK; we’re large; we contain multitudes.
Other commenters note that overuse has diluted what they take to be the word’s true signification. For “amazing”: “People use ‘amazing’ for anything that is nice or heartwarming. In other words, for things that are not amazing.” “There are any number of adjectives that are far more descriptive.” “The word which once aptly described the process of birth is now used to describe such trivial things as toast, or the color of a shirt.” For “baby bump”: “Why can’t we use the old tried-and-true ‘pregnant?’ For “occupy”: “It has been overused and abused even to promote Black Friday shopping.” For “blowback”: “the word ‘reaction’ would have been more than sufficient.” For “trickeration”: “What’s wrong with ‘trick’ or ‘trickery?’” For “ginormous”: “This word is just a made-up combination of two words. Either word is sufficient.”
Alas, language changes whether we want it to or not. They have to: things change, we change, and language changes so we can talk about it all. As University of Illinois linguist Denis Baron says, “Like all living languages, English is always changing: new words are coined and old ones are modified or discarded, as we scramble to keep up with the human imagination and an ever-changing world.” And that means words broaden and narrow their meanings, or we metaphorically extend words ready at hand. “Holy Day” became “holiday;” “cool” once referred to a specific style of jazz rather than a general expression of approval. “Meat” once indicated any kind of food, “deer” any kind of animal, “vulgar” once meant ordinary, “girl” any young person. We “surf” the Internet, likely using a “mouse” to do so and hoping to experience no “bugs” or “viruses” or “worms.” Language is irrepressibly mutable, gloriously so, I think. The only immutable languages are dead languages.
And “trickeration”? You can find it in the Oxford English Dictionary, which records it as part of African American Vernacular English, first used in 1940. Langston Hughes’s Montage of a Dream Deferred contains the lines, "I believe my old lady's pregnant again! Fate must have some kind of trickeration to populate the cullud nation.” And “ginormous?” It’s included in the 2007 update of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and was first used in 1948 in a British dictionary of military slang. And “blowback?” Sure, it means “reaction,” but that meaning has been extended to include effects and practices in such areas as forensics, jurisprudence, helicopter rotors and smoking marijuana — as well as being used as the title of three books, a film, and a role-playing game. And “baby bump?” Could it not be an attempt to make “pregnant,” which has no gradations to denote more or less, a gradable term meaning “just a little bit pregnant”? We see such an attempt when folks say “very pregnant” to indicate a late, quite noticeable stage.
The fact is that words are always prone to vandalism, to being pilfered from their secure semantic niches and made the possession of others, to serve their own particular purposes. And amid this linguistic leveraging, it’s unlikely that whatever prototypical meaning a word has will be lost. After all, we all know, and will continue to know, what “pregnant” means, even if we do use such phrases as “a pregnant pause,” or “a pregnant question” or describe a thundercloud “pregnant with rain.” And we will continue to find it amazing.
Many of the comments on the banished twelve centered on their sound, specifically, the disagreeable sensation the word provoked. Banish “amazing,” one commenter said, “to stop my head from exploding,” while another claimed it made her “teeth grate” and her “hackles rise” and “annoyed” her dog to boot. “Baby bump “makes pregnancy sound like some fun and in-style thing to do.” “Pet parent” is “cloying” and “capable of raising my blood sugar,” “trickeration” “sounds unintelligent,” “ginormous” “makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck every time I hear it” and “just sounds ridiculous,” “the new normal” fosters “cynicism about the ability of government to improve people’s lives,” and the overuse of “occupy” is not “palatable.”
Linguists will tell us that words are simply strings of sounds, and that those sounds in no way determine the words’ legitimacy. An opera in Italian is not better than one in German because you dislike the supposedly “harsh,” guttural, deep-in-the-throat sound of German. Being put off by the soundscape of a language is a matter of taste, a subjective experience of its words, not an objective fact about them. The bickering such judgments foster leads nowhere, for every person’s experience is, finally, true. Still, it is interesting that we do more than see and hear words; we feel them. Language is embodied, not just a baked-in set of abstract principles. Words have physical impact, a texture, a sensation. They are visceral, and perhaps this helps explain linguistic conservatism: any change is felt, not simply noted.
But, as Columbia University linguists John McWhorter maintains, language is “disheveled,” logically untidy and convoluted enough to send an efficiency expert scrambling for the exit. According to McWhorter, language conservatives are text bound; they cleave to the change-resistant written word and view deviations from it as a ginormous trickeration toward language traditions they cherish and, therefore, wish to preserve. For journalist and author Robert Lane Greene, such “aggrieved conservatism” is blowback against a change of style they feel should go out of style. But, as Greene notes, “Yesterday’s abomination is today’s rule.” As the life of any language reveals, language conservatism is a position cannot be long occupied, is thankless in advance, and will not win the future. Language change is the old normal. The spoken word always has and always will amble blithely away from its written tradition, with scarcely a backward glance.
***Jerry DeNuccio is a professor of English at Graceland University.***
from: The Smart Set
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Zadie Smith’s 10 Rules of Writing
by: Maria Popova
“Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.”
In the winter of 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing published in The New York Times nearly a decade earlier, The Guardian reached out to some of today’s most celebrated authors and asked them to each offer his or her 10 rules. My favorite is Zadie Smith’s list — an exquisite balance of the practical, the philosophical, and the poetic:
1.When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.
2.When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.
3.Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.
4.Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.
5.Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.
6.Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.
7.Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.
8.Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
9.Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
10.Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand — but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.
What a fine addition to other timeless wisdom on writing, including Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 rules for a great story, David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac’s 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, and Susan Sontag’s synthesized learnings.
Smith’s latest novel, NW, seven years in the waiting, came out earlier this month.
from: Brain Pickings
“Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.”
In the winter of 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing published in The New York Times nearly a decade earlier, The Guardian reached out to some of today’s most celebrated authors and asked them to each offer his or her 10 rules. My favorite is Zadie Smith’s list — an exquisite balance of the practical, the philosophical, and the poetic:
 |
| image via The Guardian |
2.When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.
3.Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.
4.Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.
5.Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.
6.Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.
7.Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.
8.Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
9.Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
10.Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand — but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.
What a fine addition to other timeless wisdom on writing, including Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 rules for a great story, David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac’s 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, and Susan Sontag’s synthesized learnings.
Smith’s latest novel, NW, seven years in the waiting, came out earlier this month.
from: Brain Pickings
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Macmillan Poised to Test Library E-book Model
by: Andrew Albanese
As big six publishers and librarians prepare for more meetings this week in New York, Macmillan officials have confirmed to PW that the publisher has developed a pilot project that would enable e-book lending for libraries—a potentially major development. However, details of the pilot remain undisclosed. “We have been working hard to develop an e-book lending model that works for all parties, as we value the libraries and the role they play in the reading community,” reads a statement provided to PW. “We are currently finalizing the details of our pilot program and will be announcing it when we are ready, and not in reaction to a demand.”
The reference to a demand, meanwhile, comes in response to an open letter written by ALA president Maureen Sullivan, which ramps up the public pressure on publishers to provide access to e-books. In the letter, which PW reported on in Monday’s issue, Sullivan stresses that libraries can no longer “stand by and do nothing while some publishers deepen the digital divide,” or “wait passively while some publishers deny access to our cultural record.” She argues that readers should “rightfully expect the same access to e-books as they have to printed books,” and demanded publishers explore more creative solutions.
“We have met and talked sincerely with many of these publishers,” Sullivan writes. “We have sought common ground by exploring new business models and library lending practices. But these conversations only matter if they are followed by action.”
Depending on the specifics, the Macmillan pilot could be a shot of much-needed good news for the library community. If Macmillan follows through and implements the program, it would leave Simon &Schuster as the only big six publisher out of the e-book game entirely.
It would also halt one negative trend: since talks between publishers and libraries began in late January, there has been no progress—and indeed, regression on the e-book issue. Penguin pulled out of the market entirely, although in June, it started a limited pilot project with vendor 3M and the New York Public Library; in March, Random House nearly tripled its e-book prices to libraries; two weeks ago, Hachette confirmed it would more than double prices on nearly 3,500 backlist e-book titles. HarperCollins continues to implement a 26-lend limit on e-books.
The news comes as librarians and publishers will meet this week in New York, including an AAP-sponsored discussion in which Sullivan will participate.
from: Publisher's Weekly
As big six publishers and librarians prepare for more meetings this week in New York, Macmillan officials have confirmed to PW that the publisher has developed a pilot project that would enable e-book lending for libraries—a potentially major development. However, details of the pilot remain undisclosed. “We have been working hard to develop an e-book lending model that works for all parties, as we value the libraries and the role they play in the reading community,” reads a statement provided to PW. “We are currently finalizing the details of our pilot program and will be announcing it when we are ready, and not in reaction to a demand.”
The reference to a demand, meanwhile, comes in response to an open letter written by ALA president Maureen Sullivan, which ramps up the public pressure on publishers to provide access to e-books. In the letter, which PW reported on in Monday’s issue, Sullivan stresses that libraries can no longer “stand by and do nothing while some publishers deepen the digital divide,” or “wait passively while some publishers deny access to our cultural record.” She argues that readers should “rightfully expect the same access to e-books as they have to printed books,” and demanded publishers explore more creative solutions.
“We have met and talked sincerely with many of these publishers,” Sullivan writes. “We have sought common ground by exploring new business models and library lending practices. But these conversations only matter if they are followed by action.”
Depending on the specifics, the Macmillan pilot could be a shot of much-needed good news for the library community. If Macmillan follows through and implements the program, it would leave Simon &Schuster as the only big six publisher out of the e-book game entirely.
It would also halt one negative trend: since talks between publishers and libraries began in late January, there has been no progress—and indeed, regression on the e-book issue. Penguin pulled out of the market entirely, although in June, it started a limited pilot project with vendor 3M and the New York Public Library; in March, Random House nearly tripled its e-book prices to libraries; two weeks ago, Hachette confirmed it would more than double prices on nearly 3,500 backlist e-book titles. HarperCollins continues to implement a 26-lend limit on e-books.
The news comes as librarians and publishers will meet this week in New York, including an AAP-sponsored discussion in which Sullivan will participate.
from: Publisher's Weekly
Monday, September 24, 2012
EU watchdog raises concerns over e-books price collusion
Apple and four major publishing houses are offering concessions to the European Union's antitrust watchdog to ease concerns that they may have illegally colluded to raise prices for e-books.
The EU Commission opened an antitrust probe into Apple Inc. and the e-books publishers last December and said Wednesday it was inviting comments from other parties in the sector over the next month.
The four publishers are Hachette Livre, a unit of France's Lagardere Publishing; Harper Collins, owned by Rupert Murdoch's U.S.-based News Corp.; CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster; and Germany's Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, which owns Macmillan.
If ultimately approved, the publishers' commitments would be legally enforceable and could bring an end to the case.
AP
from: Independent
The EU Commission opened an antitrust probe into Apple Inc. and the e-books publishers last December and said Wednesday it was inviting comments from other parties in the sector over the next month.
The four publishers are Hachette Livre, a unit of France's Lagardere Publishing; Harper Collins, owned by Rupert Murdoch's U.S.-based News Corp.; CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster; and Germany's Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, which owns Macmillan.
If ultimately approved, the publishers' commitments would be legally enforceable and could bring an end to the case.
AP
from: Independent
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